On Thinking Like a Scientist, Practice and Being Kind

By Charlie Anastasi, VP, Revenue and Academic Partnerships

Launching Rize Up this year, our goal was to “deliver practical, actionable advice for small colleges from the business world.”

The irony of writing an advice-giving newsletter is that we are constantly looking to others for advice. Ultimately, we saw this as an advantage. Rather than imparting a repository of stored knowledge, we hope you can tell that we are seeking improvement in parallel.

Any “advice” we give is advice we either learned through our own mistakes or collected from the books, podcasts and articles that guide our own thinking.?

So to close out our inaugural year of Rize Up, here are three pieces of advice we learned from excellent podcasts that will continue to influence us in 2024.

High-Rung v. Low-Rung Thinking - Tim Urban

(Listen to the podcast)

As we enter another election year, much of the conversation will focus on what people think. Envision the classic left-to-right, horizontal spectrum of political beliefs. 2024 will constantly ask you to place yourself somewhere on this one-dimensional spectrum.?

In What’s Our Problem, Tim Urban encourages us to move past the emphasis on what we think and to instead focus on how we think. Envision that we add a vertical axis to the horizontal political spectrum. The vertical axis distinguishes between low-rung and high-rung thinking.

What’s the difference? Urban compares high-rung thinking to thinking like a scientist. High-rung thinkers might have a hypothesis, but they aren’t married to that hypothesis and constantly revise their beliefs based on where the evidence leads them. They proudly say “I don’t know” when they don’t know and happily change their opinions. When we operate on the high-rungs, disagreement across the “what” spectrum is welcomed. It makes us better. Not just in politics, but at work and in our relationships.

Urban compares low-rung thinking to thinking like a debate team. A debate team is given a conclusion and asked to come up with the best justifications to defend that position. The goal is to win the argument rather than consider alternatives, which leaves us susceptible to confirmation bias and going with the crowd. We let our position on the “what” spectrum do the thinking for us. In the low rungs, we often find our identities deeply connected to our ideas. This ensures any disagreement across the spectrum is a personal affront that leads nowhere productive. Disagreement doesn’t make us better. It makes us never want to go to another Thanksgiving.?

If you are like me, you are probably reading this and quickly aligning yourself to the high-rungs. It’s those other people who can’t engage in productive discourse!

But the reality is that staying in the high-rungs is incredibly difficult and high-rung thinking is fundamentally different from high IQ thinking. A high IQ is actually deceptively undermining. Humans are master self-deceivers, so higher intelligence often means you are simply better at confirming your original bias with clever justifications!

When we offer our perspectives on what we think in 2024, let’s take the time to consider how we got there. If you didn’t change your mind on anything this year, is low-rung thinking winning out (hint: yes)?

Great Players Want to be Told the Truth - David Senra & Michael Jordan

Growing up, I had a lifesize cutout of Michael Jordan in my bedroom. My favorite gift of all time is still the Sixers v. Bulls tickets my mom got me in ‘98 to see MJ’s “Last Dance” in Philly.

So I was particularly excited when one of my go-to podcasts re-released a few episodes on Michael Jordan biographies (Episode #1; Episode #2)

One clear theme is that Jordan was uncommonly obsessed with practice. Even on the 1992 Olympic Dream Team, Jordan felt that his world class teammates were “deceiving themselves about what the game requires” to be truly great. MJ was constantly seeking out ways to be better.

One quote in particular stood out: “Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth.”

When I was younger and playing competitive sports, I think I used to crave the truth. But in my work life, I sometimes find myself both wanting to be great and wanting to be left alone.?

The two don’t mix.

All of us generally want to “get better” or be “great.” We want to be “better managers”, “better teachers”, or “better salespeople.” But how often do we actually practice the individual skills that make us great at those things? Almost never! We might work more hours, but that’s different than practice.

Take me as an example. A core part of my job is sales and most of my “practice” is showing up to sales calls that no coach will ever hear. Imagine if Michael Jordan only “practiced” free throws or layups by showing up to games. Imagine he didn’t do countless drills for each individual skill and didn’t practice them in endless scenarios with coaches giving him the blunt truth before coming to the game itself. It sounds crazy!

While comparing the routines of Olympic athletes to a desk job can understandably produce eye-rolls, a great exercise for 2024 is (i) defining 1-2 individual skills you want to improve and (ii) finding people to tell you the truth about your improvement.

Be Generous and Unique - Kevin Kelly

Out of all the thinkers I spent time with this year, Kevin Kelly was the most impactful to me.?

He recently wrote a book titled Excellent Advice for Living and ended up as a guest on a few of my favorite podcasts (check out his episode on The Knowledge Project).?

One podcast host summed up Kevin’s episode perfectly: “Be Generous and Unique.”?

I typed up a long explanation for what it means to be generous and unique, but the beauty of this advice is how simple it is, so I will limit myself to a few sentences:

The most selfish thing you can do in the long-run is to be generous and the value of striving to be fully yourself compounds over time. The things that made you “weird” as a kid can make you exceptional as an adult.

To pull from David Brooks, if we follow the Michael Jordan playbook and obsess over practice, we will create a rich resume (something I want!). If we obsess over being kind & being yourself, we will create a rich eulogy (something I want more!).?

Looking to 2024

If you’re looking to spend more time with these kinds of ideas in 2024, I’d recommend the below podcasts. If you have any recommendations, please send them our way. One of the core principles we set on our partnerships team is: “constantly be learning so we can constantly be teaching.”?

Here’s to a 2024 full of learning and teaching.

Sources:

Podcast #1: Invest like the Best - don’t let the name stop you! Some episodes are actually tailored for investors, but Patrick is an incredible talent magnet and thoughtful host.

Podcast #2: The Knowledge Project - a more eclectic mix of guests with a focus on self-improvement

Podcast #3: Founders - David, the podcast host, brings a level of energy that is often over-the-top, but I respect the passion he puts into this podcast. Talk about being unique!