Oh, and I can think of a few more:
Some time ago I learned about psychological safety and Crucial Conversations. Since then, I’ve seen them improving my life.
To test whether they actually work, I did a little experiment in my life. For some time, I played a little game where sometimes I followed the opposite advice to see what happened. And yeah, I saw the conversation quality go down. It really is not inconsequential to have a common purpose and being open to wild takes.
So yeah, I realized how powerful Crucial Conversations and Amy Edmonson’s research are and applied them to my life. And naturally my quality of life improved quite a bit.
I have a couple of examples, but here’s one that’s close to my heart (and that, sadly, hurts my heart).
I know someone who overheard the following conversation in a workshop on global policy. In one of the tables, there was a prominent doctor and one of the richest people on Earth.
The workshop went on as normal, until at some point the discussion turned to poverty and malnutrition. The rich person asked “What do you mean, malnutrition?” and the doctor politely explained the basics of acute hunger and chronic malnutrition. At the end of the explanation, the rich person asked “How can you believe any of that?” and explained that malnutrition was made up by “envious leftists” to steal from the rich.
The doctor tried to explain that malnutrition was real, and even pulled up their phone to search for a picture of a malnourished child. When the rich person saw the picture, they said “Well, I don’t know about this, but if you’re hungry, wouldn’t you just go to a store and buy food? If someone can’t figure that out, they’re just not cut out to survive”.
At that point, the conversation was cut short because the workshop organizers required them to move on.
You might be wondering who this rich person was. Here’s what I’ll tell you: their family extracted a lot of wealth in colonial times and, since then, they have used their power and wealth to remain powerful and wealthy.
Finding a good therapist. Within those sessions, some moments stand out: the ACT exercises that were experiential. Those exercises transformed many fucked up beliefs. I went from “the world is shit and I’m fucked” to “the world’s complex but I commit to be a kind person”.
I can’t recommend it enough: experiential ACT exercises.
and that “most mainstream scholars of the era” agree with OP
Totally! I really like that the article explains that Trump doesn’t lie, but he bullshits. Apparently the reason is that lying means the liar knows what’s true, while a bullshitter doesn’t care if the bullshit is true or false. This is one of the reasons Trump is unique.
I’m glad you’ve seen positive results with physical therapy.
I’d argue that a good physical therapist will understand the cause of the injury, so that they make a good treatment plan. Similarly, a good (contextual) behavior analyst will understand the causes for their patients’ difficulties, so that they can make a good treatment plan. When you know where you’re standing, it’s easier to move forward. That is why evaluation is crucial in both physical therapy and programs like AIM and PEAK.
Ah. Thanks for the recommendation. I looked it up and the noun definition was “a substance obtained by a chemical process or producing a chemical effect”. So things like sucrose in a banana, protein in eggs, and even fiber in vegetables are all chemical.
I understand that you’re trying to make the point that Nutella is not healthy, and I genuinely think you can make an effective argument for that (in fact, I agree with you!). In particular, I think you can argue with evidence-based arguments. However, do you think accusing Nutella of being made of chemicals (when practically everything in this universe —including healthy food— is made of chemicals) is the best way of making an evidence-based argument?
Just to understand better what you’re saying, what does the word “chemical” mean?
Or we can take the process-based approach, where we stop caring about defining boxes perfectly and we start caring about patterns of thoughts and behaviors. This may sound woowoo or without empirical basis, but some of the most successful programs for verbal autism are based on these ideas, the AIM and PEAK programs.
This study is from 2015.
Right?
I think it’s exactly a decade later, 2025. https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs
Fiber. Fiber helps you feel full, so it is harder to over-eat fruit in comparison with chocolate bars, gummy bears, or even fruit juice.
I thought about you when this video came out 🙂:
Gear I wish was more travel friendly? Sure! Sturdy clipboards, good pencil sharpeners, good office chairs, and height-adjustable tables (although for height-adjustable tables I can settle for good adjustable keyboard trays, which are quite portable).
And regarding your board, it makes sense that it’d be for sitting in your recliner. It sounds useful!
Not really… I get the cheapest and lightest stuff. Why? Cheap because it will likely be sold anywhere I go. Light because it’ll be easy to carry around anywhere.
I guess I could do DIY stuff, but I’d have to make it light or be ready to leave it behind.
Ineed, not my original thinking. I base my thinking on Amartya Sen’s view of human development, Christian Welzel’s view of the human empowerment process, and what I’ve seen in the places I’ve worked at.
I love your comment because this is literally what happens with democratization efforts in societies where there are very strict gender roles or religious duties. It is very easy to preach about democracy and freedom, but it is harder to truly expand people’s capabilities. If someone is to truly be themselves, they need a context that truly empowers them to be free.
Here’s an example I witnessed: I once saw a man lose his house, his job, and his inheritance, because he came out to his conservative family. He went from a comfortable middle class upbringing to being homeless in a matter of minutes. A friend took him in while he found a job, but it was only a matter of time (and money) for him to flee to a more inclusive society.
In the face of this, perhaps it would be easy to just say “well, at least he found out who truly loved him for who he was”, but we shouldn’t romanticize homelessness, poverty, and severed connections. They’re devastating.
So what can we do? At a shelter I worked in, we made darn sure people had a clear path forward before fully leaving their abuse-filled reality. More broadly, we should strive to expand human capabilities.
Talking is easy. Being capable is harder.
To frame thought experiments and their limitations, there’s a couple of recommendations.
A fundamental one is Dave Snowden’s Cynefin. It helps you match reality with how you’re thinking about reality. Cynefin helps to appropriately deal with thought experiments like the Raven’s Paradox. Similarly, there are other texts that help you critically frame thought experiments, such as texts on pragmatism, contextual functionalism, and relational frame theory. If I’m to recommend a single book, I’d recommend ACT in Context.
Now, as to thought experiments proper, there’s Daniel Dennet’s Intuition Pumps. That book holds plenty of thought experiments that I like.
I have another recommendation. It is a bit tangential, but maybe you’d be interested in George Lakoff’s framing. Lakoff would argue that frames are at least sometimes exactly the same thing as a thought experiment.
Emily Nagoski’s Burnout has some practical advice, but the single most powerful thing you could be doing right now is mindfulness meditation.
Why? Because burnout usually comes associated with a set of bad experiences that we learn to shut out. That is why we need to re-learn to experience life instead of shutting it out.
How can you do it? I personally like the Healthy Minds app and program, but there are plenty online.
Other tips? Yes. Do Loving-Kindness meditation too. It makes you happy quickly and improves your relationships with people. This, in turn, improves your work.
How am I so sure? Check out Sonja Lyubomirsky’s meta-analyses. In them, she shows that the data overwhelmingly shows that happiness is associated with, temporally precedes, and experimentally induces success in work, relationships, and many other domains of life.
Finally, I’d suggest learning the basics of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Why? Mindfulness will reconnect you with your experience and avoid rumination, but ACT will also ask you to find meaning in your life. Work can be meaningful if you’re not ruminating and you do the necessary values work. I love Hayes’ A Liberated Mind, but, again, there are other resources out there.
To understand your question, do you mean in general? Or to go into the details of how it looks to apply the ideas? In general, I’d say my advice is to read the book Crucial Conversations and the book The Fearless Organization and learn the ideas in there. How does it look? From afar, Crucial Conversations and psychological safety look like better conversations. I can’t say they’re perfect, but at least I avoid some pits I fell into before.