Daniel's notes on Clear Thinking

WHAT HAPPENS IN ORDINARY MOMENTS DETERMINES your future. We're taught to focus on the big decisions, rather than the moments where we don't even realize we're making a choice. Yet these ordinary moments often matter more to our success than the big decisions.

We think that if only we get the big things right, everything will magically fall into place. If we choose to marry the right person, it'll all be okay. If we choose the right career, we'll be happy. If we pick the right investment, we'll be rich. This wisdom is, at best, partially true. You can marry the most amazing person in the world, but if you take them for granted, it will end. You can pick the best career, but if you don't work your butt off, you won't get opportunities. You can find the perfect investment, only to look at your savings account and have nothing to invest. Even when we get the big decisions directionally right, we're not guaranteed to get the results we want.

In most ordinary moments the situation thinks for us. We don't realize it at the time because these moments seem so in-significant. However, as days turn into weeks and weeks into months, the accumulation of these moments makes accomplishing our goals easier or harder.

Each moment puts you in a better or worse position to handle the future. It's that positioning that eventually makes life easier or harder. When our ego takes over and we show someone we're the boss, we make the future harder. When we are passive-aggressive with a colleague at work, our relationship becomes worse. And while these moments don't seem to matter much at the time, they compound into our current posi-tion. And our position determines our future.

The greatest aid to judgment is starting from a good position. The company with cash on the balance sheet and low debt has nothing but good options to choose from. When bad times come, and they always do, their options go from good to great. On the other hand, a company with no cash and high debt has nothing but bad options to choose from. Things quickly go from bad to worse. And this example easily extends beyond the boardroom as well.

When our unthinking reactions make situations worse, that little voice in our head starts to beat us up: "What were you thinking, you idiot?" The truth of the matter is, you weren't thinking. You were reacting, exactly like the animal you are. Your mind wasn't in charge. Your biology was.

For instance, like all animals, we are naturally prone to defend our territory? We might not be defending a piece of terrain on the African savanna, but territory isn't just physical, it's also psychological. Our identity is part of our territory too. When someone criticizes our work, status, or how we see ourselves, we instinctively shut down or defend ourselves. When someone challenges our beliefs, we stop listening and go on the attack. No thoughts, just pure animal instinct.

We're naturally wired to organize the world into a hierarchy. We do this to help make sense of the world, maintain our beliefs, and generally feel better. But when someone infringes on our place in the world and our understanding of how it works, we react without thinking. When someone cuts you off on the highway and road rage kicks in, that's your unconscious mind saying, "Who are you to cut me off?" You're reacting to a threat to your inherent sense of hierarchy. On the road we are all equals. We're all supposed to play by the same rules. Cutting someone off violates those rules and implies higher status.

We're self-preserving. Most of us would never intentionally push someone else down to get where we want to go. The key word here is "intentionally," because intention involves thought. When we're triggered and not thinking, our desire to protect ourselves first takes over. When layoffs loom at a company, otherwise decent people will quickly throw each other under the bus to keep a job. Sure, they wouldn't consciously want to hurt their colleagues, but if it comes down to "them versus me," they will ensure they come out on top. That's biology.

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. 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. Let's call them the emotion default, the ego default, the social default, and the inertia default.

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.