One of my best friends is an information addict, he reads tons and tons of books, watches video after video, listens to podcast after podcast…
It seems like he knows every single podcaster on the planet, and I’m not even joking.
But he never, ever takes any sort of action.
He’s a great guy, and I love him to death, but it’s just too hard for him to take action.
He knows it, in fact we talk about that all the time as he always says: “I’m an information addict, I always get stuck in analysis-paralysis.”.
But let’s not be too judgmental here. I mean who of us hasn’t forgot to apply some great ideas and insight they learned from somewhere?
I know I have.
You know how it is, you come across a great tool or idea to increase efficiency, it feels great. But then you forget to apply it when the day comes.
This curious little thing made me wonder if there are ways to make certain information stick more than others.
Because let’s face it, our brain processes a massive amount of information throughout the day.
You would think that the most important ones that stick but sadly there are so many cognitive biases embedded in all of us that makes it hard to prioritize information.
What would be the most direct way to make a certain information float above all the other competing information we see every day?
To hack our brains, so to speak
Short answer, I don’t know.
I started thinking about that and I remembered, I remembered how I used to react to information when I was a kid.
Back then if my parents warned me against doing something and I would always ask “why”.
Somehow a warning was never enough.
Even to this day they keep reminding me that back then unless they gave me an explanation, I would never listen.
Apparently, they’ve explained electricity to me, otherwise I would’ve been stabbing that plug with a fork until my hair looked like the kid version of Hellraiser.
The question remains:
How to make your brain prioritize certain information without succumbing to all sorts re-affirmation and confirmation biases we picked up along the way?
First of all, the hell do I know? Secondly, I’m just gonna invent a new technique, so…
Don’t do this at home!
What’s the most immediate way to bypass the 12 years of Pavlovian doctrine?
I don't know, maybe go back before those bad habits were installed?
You laugh now, but what if one of the main purposes of modern education was to create selective responses and selective outrage?
It sounds hard to believe, I know. But ask yourself this:
You can send people to jail for victim-less crimes where sexual assault is national sport and claim it's rehabilitating and therapeutic and no one blinks an eye.
You can bomb innocent people like there is no tomorrow, you can take people’s freedoms away, screw the economy and cause poverty… But nobody cares.
No one gives a fuck.
If you were to pronounce a word that starts with the letter ‘F’.. It’s whole new story.
Their faces go red, their chests are heavy, shirt-buttons popping everywhere!
The outrage is uncontrollable.
The same of course goes for Christmas-less coffee cups, or any other irrelevant issue that people perceive it’s acceptable for them to get riled up about.
Why does this phenomena keep occurring?
It because someone had the brilliant idea to attempt to neutralize curiosity and critical thinking and train little kids to produce selective responses and selective outrage.
So what if we train out brains to lose all the baggage and prioritize what’s important based on the “why”.
Crazy, am I right?
You know what’s crazier? Hiring a freakin’ dog trainer to base your education system upon.
Jokes aside, the ‘why’ is what shows you if you’re on the right track, it’s what keeps you going and prevents you from burnout.
“There are only two ways to influence human behavior: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it.
Very few people or companies can clearly articulate WHY they do WHAT they do. By WHY I mean your purpose, cause or belief - WHY does your company exist? WHY do you get out of bed every morning? And WHY should anyone care?
People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.” ― Simon Sinek.
If you can influence other people’s behavior using certain tools, then why can’t we use the same ones to influence our own?
