Tag: decisions

The Ruling Faculty

The Ruling Faculty

Posted on by jabittan
Marcus Aurelius placed his ruling faculty, or the conscious and rational ability of his brain above all else in his life.  He focused on maximizing his rational ability and strove to bring a sense of awareness and intentionality to all aspects of his conscious being. To him, recognizing the power and control that he held over his rational brain meant that he had the ability to shape his life by changing his opinions, ideas, perspectives, and thoughts of the world around him.  In Meditations he wrote about how one could recognize and take charge of their conscious and how one could view the world from greater perspectives.  Aurelius wrote, “What is my ruling faculty now to me? And of what nature am I now Making it? And for what purpose am I now using it? Is it void of understanding?” By framing his conscious decision making ability in this way he was able to put power for his life and his actions into his own hands, or rather into his own rational brain. He looked at the world and saw himself as the primary actor driving the decisions and actions of his life.

 

This quote is valuable to me because I often feel as though my life is being driven and pulled in multiple directions without my consent or ability to shift and change course.  In our busy worlds of 40 hour work weeks, we may often begin to feel as though our routine is set with external forces determining what decisions we make and how we realize those actions.  Throughout Meditations Aurelius writes about the importance of being aware of our actions and retaining control over our rational brain, but in the quote above he shows us exactly how he practiced developing a rational brain.

 

Simply asking ourselves questions and focusing on ourselves wont create the lives we want to lead, but if we can build Aurelius’ questions into every fabric of our being, then we can begin to morph our lives into something greater.  Recognizing that we have the ability to be rational beings and that we have the ability to control our lives through the thoughts and perspective we adopt, will help us to build powerful habits that allow us to constantly grow.  The self-awareness that stems from the constant questioning of how we are applying the rational faculties of our mind will slowly allow us to ensure that we are always making decisions for reasons that are deliberately judged and not based in impulsivity.

Marcus Aurelius on Brevity

Posted on by jabittan
In his common place book, published after his death with the title Meditations, Marcus Aurelius continually returned to the idea of our death and the short period of time that we spend on Earth.  He had a very realistic sense for how short our time here is, and how we should think about that time.  Our mortality can be a difficult subject to think about and focus on, but Aurelius was in many ways fascinated by the recognition of his mortality and what that meant for the life he lead.

 

Aurelius wrote, “Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.” In his quote he is showing that not only is our life short, but the lives of those who will remember us are also short. Not long after we have passed away, those who follow us will pass away. Living for legacy and trying to live to be remembered and venerated for eternity is a wasteful approach to life because you will never be able to control what is remembered and exactly how you are remembered.

 

Throughout meditations Aurelius writes about living in the present and being content with the life that you have. By focusing on our thoughts and changing the perspectives we foster, we can better understand our place in the world and our motivations.  Accepting that we will have an end, and that our memory will be forgotten is difficult, but it is an honest reality that we should embrace.  When we accept our mortality and the brevity of our lives, each moment can become more important and special, helping us better use our time to improve the direction and focus of our actions.

Confirmation Bias: A Hindrance to Quality Decision Making

Posted on by jabittan
Fred Kiel addresses his ideas about disciplined decision making processes in his book Return on Character which focuses on the ways in which leaders with strong moral character make greater impacts on the companies they lead than do leaders with weak moral character.  Part of Kiel’s idea regarding these strong moral leaders is that they have worked on processes of self reflection, and they are able to control the quick emotional side of their brain in favor of the slow, deliberate, and rational part of their brain.  By understanding that their immediate reaction may provide valuable intuitions and by slowing down their decision making process to use reason over emotion, these leaders can make better decisions that help improve the lives of everyone, not just themselves.

 

While discussing this decision making process Kiel also mentions the idea of confirmation bias. He hits briefly on the idea that we find information that confirms thoughts and ideas that we had already developed which in our mind proves our thoughts correct.  Rather than seeking information that challenges our preconceived notions, we look for news stories, data points, and other people who see things the same way.  When we succumb to confirmation bias we begin to build a capsule of likeminded individuals around us that shields us from opposing thoughts and ideas.  The danger here is that our ideas could be wrong, impractical, morally shallow, or just not as advantageous for growth and progress as we think they are.  If we can become comfortable with shifting perspectives and learn to discuss other view points, then we will become a more well-rounded individual.

 

By striving to avoid confirmation bias leaders can make better decisions and be more connected to their employees, customers, and competition.  They can become more adaptive and better predict how the world in which they operate will change, giving them an advantage in moving forward. When leaders succumb to confirmation bias they have only one option for success, and if it does not pan out they will not have the flexibility and varying perspectives to turn the situation around.

 

When we incorporate multiple perspectives we can actually better develop our own perspective.  We can begin to add new parts and pieces to our ideas helping them become more robust.  The goal of finding new perspectives should not be to stockpile our own ammunition against those perspectives, but to better understand why others see the world in those differing manners so that we can better connect with them and better adapt to suite not just our own needs, but everyones.  To truly avoid confirmation bias you must seek out other information which conflicts with your thoughts, and you must digest that information from multiple perspectives.

Self-Aware

Posted on by jabittan
To write his book Return on Character author Fred Kiel studied the character traits and habits of business leaders from large to small businesses across the country.  He spoke with the leaders themselves, their teams, and the employees within the company to get a sense of which leaders truly valued and displayed strong moral character while running their business. What Kiel founds is that those CEOs who had the strongest moral character were more respected by their employees, produced greater value for their companies, and brought people together in powerful ways.  One of the cornerstone principles of the leaders with strong character that Kiel spoke with was an idea of self-awareness, and Kiel addresses how that trait can help CEOs have such positive impacts on their companies.

 

Regarding self-awareness Kiel wrote, “Among our research participants, those CEOs with the strongest character and strongest business results—were self-aware. They spent time reflecting on their life journey. They have some understanding of its milestones, how they’re connected, and where they continue to lead. They know where they are going, in part because they know where they’ve been.”

 

Kiel shows that self-awareness helps the CEOs make better decisions in the work place which can help guide themselves, the company, and all of the individuals within the company when difficult situations arise. Building a strong sense of self-awareness allows the individual to reflect and learn from their past, helps them stay humble, and allows them to share their experiences with others in meaningful ways.  By providing a base line to evaluate our decisions and morals, self-awareness helps us better understand the outcomes of our choices, and helps us stay motivated to make good decisions.

 

When describing those CEOs who did not have a cohesive grasp on their life story and background Kiel wrote, “The least principled CEOs in the research, on the other hand, those whose behavior demonstrates little in the way of strong character and whose business results tend to be weak, were more likely to be running blind through their life journey.” He suggest that those who have not reflected on themselves and what has shaped them are unable to view the world in a truly profound way to make positive decisions for not just their own life, but for the life of the company and for the lives of those who work as part of the company, from the leadership team all the way down to the interns.”

A Complex Model of Human Beings

Posted on by jabittan
Throughout his book Return on Character, author and character researcher Fred Kiel talks about the complexity of human development, the complexity of our interactions with others, and the complexity of creating a model to understand how we grow into the people and decision makers that we become. In the book, social science research is brought in to help describe human behaviors, but for Kiel the studies don’t fully explain who we are. He approaches the science and discoveries accepting that they explain aspects of our decisions, but he seems to have a belief that there often seems to be a disconnect between our experiences and the results of science. Hinting at the multidimensional context of our lives, Kiel suggests that we are too complex for all of our decisions and interactions to be explained by one general theory. Regarding research he writes,

“Ongoing research is helping us more fully understand the nature of who we are as human beings and how our basic human nature supports the genetic predispositions and life experiences that determine who we are as individuals. We can use these new findings to embrace a model of human nature that describes us as capable of becoming mature, complete individuals, not just self-focused rationalists—a model that supports organizational life in all its rich complexity and celebrates the deep and meaningful connection between who we are and what we do.”

Kiel is showing a shift in thinking about people and is looking at us from a perspective of individuals tied to a community with varying degrees of commitment and responsibility.  He is showing that our research is beginning to accept human beings as more complex social beings with individual desires and motivations, which is not easily built together with one single model of humanity.

Understanding that there is not one model for how we relate to others and act during our lifetime seems to suggest that we have the power to shape ourselves and who we become by managing our reactions to the world around us and by understanding our social connections. Kiel supports the idea that we can change ourselves in relation to our society while at the same time our society and culture, especially our close relationships, can have an impact in changing our lives.  Human behavior is not set in stone, and we have the power to shape our behavior and seek out cultures and environments that support the decisions and behaviors we desire.

The Slow Brain’s Decisions

Posted on by jabittan
Fred Kiel addresses our decision making in his book Return on Character as a way to describe the thoughts, choices, and actions of leaders with strong moral character. Kiel contrasts the idea of a fast brain, or subconscious brain, with a slow brain, or rational brain, and the ways in which we make our decisions.  The fast brain is reactionary and always acting to guide our choices without needing  energy or attention, but it is our slow brain that guides our moral character and our willpower as Kiel explains,

“Our slow brain is where we do all our conscious and analytic work.  It provides us with tools of logic and reflection … Our slow brain can call on a number of beliefs or rules and use them to guide our decisions. It can also override the intuitions of our fast brain, a process we know as willpower.  Our slow brain can also learn to identify and ignore erroneous signals from our fast brane, which is how we demonstrate self-awareness and wisdom.”

I really enjoy this quote because it shows how reflection and self awareness-both result from our slow brain, but help to also develop our slow brain and improve the choices we make. What that means to me is that reflection and self-awareness are conscious decisions and tools that can be used to build and improve our decision making and thought process. When we are more aware of our fast brain and the impulses and desires it creates, we can logically think through our impulsive desires to determine whether we are seeking a need or just looking to fulfill a temporary pleasure. Slowing down and  applying logic through self-awareness can help us understand not just our choices, but our reactions to the world. We can avoid poor judgements about actions, decisions, and how we treat others. Our slow brain can be trained to help us eat better, treat others with more respect, and drive nicer.  Our willpower will grow, our self-awareness will be boosted, and better choices can help us become more productive when we cultivate a strong slow brain and pair it with a well habituated fast brain.

Kiel continues to explain how often we usually engage our slow brain over the course of a day, “Amazingly, most researchers agree that very few of the choices we make in the course of a day — from what to order for lunch to which business alliances we form—are guided by conscious thought or our slow brain.” This means that we are not pausing to reflect and make choices that are as logical and rational as we would like to think. Keeping this in mind can help us understand the importance of using our rational brain at meaningful times so that we in some sense train or set up positive habits for our fast brain. The idea that Kiel lays out about our lack of slow brain thought can also help us understand the importance of how we view others. Judging poor decisions and actions of others can be done in way in which we view which brain, slow brain or fast brain, the other is engaging. This can help us better understand others, and understand that we often do not make decisions that are much better or much more thought out. Thinking about thinking in this way allows us to build more self-awareness to help our slow brain become a better thinking machine which will further drive our self-awareness and understandings of others in a positive feedback cycle.

Act Accordingly

Posted on by jabittan
I recently read Colin Wright’s book Act Accordingly which he begins with the following quote: “You have exactly one life in which to do everything you will ever do. Act accordingly.”

I love the idea of acting accordingly that Wright lays out in the beginning of his book.  He acknowledges that acting accordingly and understanding that we only live once will manifest differently in our lives depending on the type of person we are.  The way we chose to spend our time on this planet and the decisions we make while we are here are shaped by an infinite number of factors, but keeping Wright’s quote in mind helps us see the importance of maximizing the decisions we make.

Wright continues and ends the introduction of his book by writing, “Far more than jus a phrase, acting accordingly is a framework for decision-making that places importance where it belongs: on you and how you spend your time within the context of your life.”

I believe that the first step to living a life where one acts accordingly is a dose of self awareness. Thinking about how to act accordingly and then evaluating your life and the decisions you make will start to build that self awareness.  This is a process that requires honesty, and you must be able to step back and evaluate your choices and actions in different areas.  Choosing to spend time watching television or being distracted by social media may not be the best way to act accordingly, but if you are not practicing self awareness, you may not realize how much time you are spending with those activities.

The area I have struggled with lately is balancing my time to make decisions that will allow me to live a life that is full and enriching.  Constantly moving, interacting, and thinking can be very taxing, and after a full day of work and a lot of time spent reading, it is very tempting to turn off the mind with a tv program at the end of the day. What compounds the difficulties for me is being in a relationship and finding time to be with my significant other while still engaging in all of the activities that interest me.

I think that Wright would solve my problem by encouraging me to follow the ideas that I have had for starting my own company. By creating my own venture I would become my own boss and could build a more flexible lifestyle for myself. This would open up the world to me to create an environment and routine that allows me to maximize my decisions and still create time with my fiancé, focused on her desires, and being close with her.  This is a large step, and for many it would not be the right decision.  I think there is value from being in a secure position, and I think one can still maximize their choices. What it may require is taking control of those small moments where constant dings and alerts keep us distracted by social media or useless television.
The Power of Our Environment - Priming Effects

The Power of Our Environment

Posted on by jabittan
While discussing the influence of small cues on our thought process, Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds reflects on several studies that show how our environment can shape our thoughts and actions.  Wiseman explains the impact of small cues and the affect known as priming.  Priming involves triggers that lead to particular actions or thoughts becoming more prevalent or likely to occur.  A sneeze is a primer for someone to say bless you, the word hot is a primer for the word dog, and the Family Feud tv show is an experiment in priming with a cue or phrase priming responses from contestants.

 

Wiseman explains ways in which many situations in our lives can be impacted by primers, “Put people in front of a computer wallpaper showing dollar symbols, and they behave in a more selfish and unfriendly way, giving less money to charity and sitting farther away from others.  Give interviewers a cup of iced coffee, and unknowingly they rate interviewees as colder and less pleasant.  Add a faint smell of cleaning fluid to the air, and people tidy up more thoroughly.  Put a briefcase on a table during a meeting and people become more competitive.  The evidence points to a little counting for a lot.”

 

I find the idea of priming and our environment as very interesting since subtleties can have such a big impact on our actions.  I think most people can understand the situation where you are trying to cut back on sweets, yet in the office break room you see a pink box, and suddenly sugary foods are the only thing you can focus on.  These small cues seem to have a large impact on our behavior, and they seem to put decisions and actions beyond our control.
Changing our behavior is difficult, and the study by Wiseman shows that there are ways in which we can use priming for positive results. We can manipulate our environment to produce specific changes in our behavior, and help us act in ways we would like.  I am currently working through Dave Ramsey’s book on household money management and financial freedom, The Total Money Makeover, and one thing that Ramsey mentions is the myth that we only need a greater will power to change our actions and to achieve the goals we want.  What Ramsey explains, and what Wiseman’s research backs up, is that we are all motivated to make smart decisions (in this case financially) but we do not have systems in place to help us do so.  In the case of priming, we could say that our environment is set up to make it easy for us to go into debt and spend money, especially since our culture and environment lacks primers that lead us to save money and work on budgeting.

 

I think that it is worth the effort to study and practice simple priming methods that may help one create an environment that stimulates the desired lifestyle, actions, or thoughts that one is hoping to produce.  Understanding that small cues in our environment can have a big impact on our minds can help us feel better about ourselves when we have trouble reaching a goal, and can give us easy first steps to reach the goals we set out for.

Eliminate the Black and White

Posted on by jabittan
In the United States we really like the idea that things are either good or bad. My personal belief is that we get locked in to these “either or” ways of thinking because it is easier than trying to process information. Good or bad, Republican or Democrat, lazy or hardworking, all provide shortcuts in our mind for us to classify people and decisions. In Packing Light, Allison Vesterfelt writes “sometimes there are not right and wrong decisions. There are just different choices with different benefits, different ramifications, and different baggage.” This quote unpackages so much in my mind of the hold-ups that I have when looking at other people. When you watch mass media, politicians are portrayed as good or evil (or often evil and more/less evil) and their decisions are often criticized as either good or bad for society and the country. It is so difficult to imagine how many decisions go into a single piece of legislature, and all of the different benefits and ramifications that go along with a single decision in any piece of legislature.  After reading this quote and trying to stop seeing things in the black or white, I have noticed how often it is that we take a mental short cut and describe something as being either one thing or the other. Vesterfelt’s quote helps me realize that we cannot simply ascribe categories to any one thing. Looking at something as an “either/or” limits your understanding of that thing or person.  Our lives are very complex, and the decisions we make come from the web of complexities that we see our lives and choices through. For an outsider a decision may appear to obviously be right or wrong, but we have to remember that in that situation we are filtering that decision through our own perception without having and vision of the pressures and factors that went into the decision for the other person.
By simply accepting that nothing is either right or wrong, and that nothing fits into the duality and dichotomy that our mind seems to love, we can take a softer position on other people, our own actions, and the composition of the world. When you try to analyze something to understand what part of it is a plus or a minus, you not only gain a deeper understanding of the world, but you stop making hateful decisions, and can build compassion in your life.  We all make decisions with some of them being easy, difficult, great, or not ideal, and by not berating ourselves and others for our decisions but by trying to be mindful of why we or others made decisions we can broaden our vision, and understand others better.
With Vesterfelt’s quote, the core of her idea is that we can spend too much time worrying about our own decisions and become stuck in a routine that rewards inaction versus action.  When you are so caught up worrying if the next decision is the right decision, you get to a crucial point where the decision must be made, and it is easier to take not action and remain in the status quo.  This is where Vesterfelt was building an awareness of her decisions so that she could avoid classifying any decision as right or wrong.  She began to see that any decision she made would have both positive and negative consequences, but that the only way for her to grow is by embracing the consequences and fully applying herself to whatever decisions she makes.