From Shane Parrish’s “Clear Thinking”
Beware of the four defaults
- “Knowing Your Defaults While there are many such instincts, four stand out to me as the most prominent, the most distinctive, and the most dangerous. These behaviors represent something akin to our brain’s default or factory settings.[3] They’re behavioral programs written into our DNA by natural selection that our brains will automatically execute when triggered unless we stop and take the time to think.”
- “They have many names, but for the purposes of this book, let’s call them the emotion default, the ego default, the social default, and the inertia default. Here’s how each essentially functions: 1. The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts. 2. The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy. 3. The social default: we tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group. 4. The inertia default: we’re habit forming and comfort seeking. We tend to resist change, and to prefer ideas, processes, and environments that are familiar. There are no hard edges between defaults; they often bleed into one another. Each on their own is enough to cause unforced errors, but when they act together, things quickly go from bad to worse.”
- “People who master their defaults get the best real-world results. It’s not that they don’t have a temper or an ego, they just know how to control both rather than be controlled by them. With the ability to think clearly in ordinary moments today, they consistently put themselves in a good position for tomorrow.” (p. 10)
The Emotion Default
- “Sonny’s quick temper ultimately leads to his downfall, as it does for may people. When we respond without reasoning, we’re more likely to make mistakes that seem obvious in hindsight. In fact, when we respond emotionally, we often don’t even realize that we’re in a position that calls for thinking at all. When you are possessed by the moment, all the reasoning tools in the world won’t help you.” (p. 12)
- “Emotions can make even the best of us into idiots, driving us away from clear thinking. They often have help, though. Later we’ll see some of the many inbuilt biological vulnerabilities that leave us even more exposed to the emotion default’s influence: sleep deprivation, hunger, fatigue, emotion, distraction, stress from feeling rushed, and being in an unfamiliar environment. If you find yourself in any of these conditions , be on your guard! The emotion default is likely running the show. We’ll also explore the safeguards that can protect you in such situations.” (p. 14)
The Ego Default
- Not all confidence is created equally. Sometimes, it comes from a track record of applying deep knowledge successfully, and other times it comes from the shallowness of reading an article. It’s amazing how often the ego turns unearned knowledge into reckless confidence. A littel knowledge can be a dangerous thing..” (p. 16)
- “Our ego tempts us into thinking we’re more than we are. Left unchecked, it can turn confidence into overconfidence or even arrogance. We get a bit of knowledge on the internet and suddenly we are full or hubris. Everything seems easy. As a result, we take risks that we may not understand we’re taking. We must resist this kind of unearned confidence, though, if we are to get the results we desire.” (p. 16)
- “Unearned knowledge rushes us to judgment. “I’ve got this,” we think. We convince ourselves that low-chance events are zero-change events and think only of best-case outcomes. We feel immune to back luck- to the bad things that happen to other people, because of our newfound (and false) sense of confidence.” (p. 17)
- “Most people go through life assuming that they’re right…and that people who don’t see thingks their way are wrong. We mistake how we want the world to be with how it actually is. The subject doesn’t matter: we’re right about politics, other people, our memories, you name it. We mistake how we want the world to work for how it does work.” (p. 21)
- “Of course, we can’t be right about everything all the time. Everyone makes mistakes or misremember some things. But we still want to feel right all the time, and ideally get other people to reinforce that feeling. Hence, we channel inordinate amounts of energy to proving to others-or ourselves-that we’re right. When this happens, we’re less concerned with outcomes and more concerned with protecting our egos.” (p. 21)
- “If you find yourself expending tremendous energy on how you are seen, if you often feel your pride being wounded, if you find yourself reading an article or two on a subject and thinking you’re an expert, if you always try to prove you’re right and have difficulty admitting mistakes, if you have a hard time saying “I don’t know,” or if you’re frequently envious of others or feel as though you’re never given the recognition you deserve-be on guard! Your ego is in charge.” (p. 22)
The Social Default
- “The social default inspires confirmity. It coaxes us to fall in line with an idea or behavior simply because other people do. It embodies what the term “socail pressure” refers to: wanting to beling to the crowd, fear of being an outsider, fear of being scorned, fear of disappointing other people.” (p. 195)
- “Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely.”
- “If you do what everyone else does, you’ll get the same result that everyone else gets. Best practices aren’t always the best. By definition, they’re average.”
- “If you don’t know enough about what you’re doing to make your own decisions, you probably should do what everyone is doing. If you want better-than average results, though, you’ll have to think clearly. And thinking clearly is thinking independently. Sometimes you have to break free of the social default and do something differently from those around you. Fair warning: It’s going to get uncomfortable.” (p. 25)
- “Lou Brock might have put it best when he said, “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” In other words, someone who’s possessed by the social default is easy to defeat.” (p. 26)
- “if you find yourself exerting energy to fit in with a crowd, if you’re frequently fearful of disappointing other people, if you’re afraid of being an outsider, or if the threat of scorn fills you with dread, then beware! The social default is in charge.” (p. 27)
The Inertia Default
- “The inertia defalut pushes us to maintain the status quo. Starting something is hard but so too is stopping something. We resist change even when change is for the best.” (p. 29)
- “Objects never change if they’re left alone. They don’t start moving on their own, nor do they stop moving till something stops them. This law of physics can also be applied to human behavior and our instinct to resist even beneficial change.” (p. 29)
- “One reason we resist change is that keeping things the way they are requires almost no iffort. This helps explain why we get complacent. It takes a lot of effort to build momentum but far less to maintain it. Once something becomes “good enough,” we can stop the effort and still get decent results. The inertia default leverages our desire to stay in our comfort zone, relying on old techniques or standards even when they’re no longer optimal.” (p. 31)
- “Inertia is ivident in many of our daily habits, such as when we stick to the same grocery store brand even if a new, superior one appears on the market. This reluctance to try new products is often due to uncertainty and effort involved in evaluating them. ” (p. 31)
- We like to think we’re open-minded and willing to change our beliefs when the facts change, but history has show otherwise. ” (p. 31)
- “It’s not the strongest of the species that survives, no the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change” (p. 31)
- “Inertia also prevents us from doing hard things. The longer we avoid the hard thing we know we should do, the harder it becomes to do. Avoiding conflict is comfortable and easy. The longer we avoid the conflict, however, the more necessary it becomes to continue avoiding it. What starts out as avoiding a small but difficult conversation quickly grows into avoiding a large and seemingly impossible one. The weight of what we avoid eventually affects our relationship.” (p. 32)
- “Inertia keeps us doing things that don’t get us what we want. It operates in our subconscious largely undetected until its effects are too hard to counter. If you find yourself biting your tongue in group situations, if you find yourself or your team resisting change or continuing to do something in one way simply because that’s how you’ve always done it in the past- be on your guard! The inertia default is likely at work.” (p. 34)