Come! Do a few thought experiments to see if you're a great person.
The first one: You are playing with the color, has opened thirteen big in a row, the next one, will you bet on the big or small?
Second: You just found out that your cheating was known to your wife and family, and someone exposed your behavior on the Internet, and your career and life may be ruined. At this time, you are having a very important meeting. So, will you focus on an efficient meeting as if nothing had happened, or will you be distraught, scrawled and rushed to deal with family affairs?
Focus on building a mental model to help you open the door to a new world, hello everyone, I am He Xiang.
What do you think? Is there an answer?
The first thought experiment is easier to judge, and the choice of ordinary people is definitely a small bet! Thirteen big ones have been opened, how can the next one not be opened again? What a coincidence.
But the real masters understand that as long as the dice have not been manipulated, then the probability of the next big or small is 50%, how to choose, are the same.
The second thought experiment is not so good choice. When ordinary people encounter such sudden crisis events, there is no panic, basically they will be controlled by fear, so as to make many wrong and even absurd decisions.
Human beings have a common characteristic, that is, in the process of acting, they are unconsciously affected by events that have occurred in the past.
But there are some people in this world who are not affected by past events.
Like the protagonist of our second thought experiment, U.S. President Clinton.
In 1998, Clinton was embroiled in the Lewinsky scandal, facing numerous questions and apologizing to the nation. Ordinary people in this situation have long had a nervous breakdown, but Clinton, like nobody else, still works every day, and meets with members of Congress attentively and efficiently, as if there had never been a scandal.
Later, Clinton recalled the story and said that the reason he was not bitten by the crocodile of the sex scandal was that he had installed a "mental device" in his brain.
If you're also someone who is susceptible to being influenced by what happened in the past to make decisions in the present, you're likely to fall into the trap of crocodile thinking. Today's article, you must read it carefully.
I'll tell you three rules to help you overcome the entanglement of past events, make decisions in the present, and avoid being dragged into the water by ferocious crocodiles.
Okay, let's start our journey now.
01、What is crocodile thinking?
You must have seen the crocodile hunting scene, when the crocodile bites the prey, it will continue to drag into the water, then the prey will continue to struggle due to pain, and even try to knock the crocodile's mouth with a limb that is not bitten by the crocodile. At this time, the crocodile will turn over violently and bite a piece of meat from the prey.
Think about the thought experiment we just did.
Isn't the one that opens thirteen in a row the same crocodile that bites you? If you struggle and struggle because you open thirteen in a row, thinking that these thirteen will affect the outcome of the future, then the next step, you will only trigger the crocodile's turning mechanism and be bitten off a piece of meat.
If you are panicked because you have been exposed to a cheating scandal, resulting in a crisis in your career, life and everything related to you, doesn't that mean giving the crocodile a chance to die and turn over?
This is the trap of "crocodile thinking", and pain can make you lose your mind. In fact, the best way to be bitten by a crocodile is not to struggle, but to find a way to hold the crocodile's body in place and not give it the chance to turn over and hurt you again.
This seems to be very simple, but we humans are such a creature. When deciding to do something, we will not only consider what it will bring us in the future, but also be affected by what happened in the past.
It's like if you spend 50 bucks to watch a movie and watch it for half an hour, you know it's a bad movie, and watching it again is a waste of time. The rational choice is to leave immediately and not watch it, but I think 90% of people will choose to finish the movie.
Discover that this is the terrible thing about crocodile thinking, it will separate your rationality from behavior, let you unconsciously fall into an irrational choice, and then be bitten off a piece of meat, or even swallowed up in its entirety.
02, why does "crocodile thinking" affect your behavior?
Why does crocodile thinking affect our normal behavior?
If the past cannot be changed, why should we bother with them?
Because remembering what happened in the past reduces the burden on our brains. For example, last week you ate a very delicious hot pot restaurant, then this week you still want to eat hot pot, you save the choice of trouble, go directly to this one.
Experience is a good thing and a prerequisite for the development of our civilization.
But this over-reliance on experience in the brain also makes us slaves to habits, causing us to be unable to objectively judge the causes of the present situation.
The so-called stereotypes come from this way, for example, the map cannons will think that the northeast people are black and astringent, the Henan people are liars, the Shaanxi people can't live without noodles, and the southerners don't like to eat peppers and so on.
There is a term in economics called sunk cost, which refers to the cost that has been paid and cannot be recovered, which has sunk and is no longer a cost. This part of the cost should not be taken into account by you when you make decisions.
I studied biology in college, after a year of study I know that I am not suitable for this major, the rational choice is to change majors, or return to the third year of high school to re-examine, but I think for the college entrance examination I have paid so much, now let me give up those efforts, I am really a little reluctant, so hard scalp learning for 4 years, the result? As a result, after graduation, I didn't do a single day of biology work.
You see, we who can't forget the sunk cost are like prey bitten by crocodiles, and the attachment to the past will make me involuntarily choose to fight with the crocodile, which is more true than the sunk cost. This allows us to make many ridiculous decisions.
03, how to use "crocodile thinking" to put a spiritual switch on your brain?
You must have also found that there are some people in this world who are always in a cycle, that is, "reluctant to the past, let alone unable to expand the future."
I have a friend who failed to start a business in his twenties, which made him struggle for ten years in the pain of failure, and now he is almost forty years old, and he still can't find self-confidence, and his life is the same as ten years ago.
Is there really no way for ordinary people to escape the dilemma of "being bitten by a snake for ten years and being afraid of the well rope for ten years"?
Is there a way to put a mental device on yourself, like someone like Clinton, so that you can restart at any time?
In the process of studying "crocodile thinking", I found three ways to install a spiritual device on myself.
- First: Every day is like the first day
If you don't change this sentence at the beginning, it is easier said than done. It is often said that as soon as I open my eyes every morning, I feel that I owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to others, mortgages, car loans, child loans, and debts that I can't pay. So, every day you are carrying the burden of the previous day, or even many years ahead, and carrying the weight. You think, can you live this day well?
The masters all have an ability, that is, they can turn themselves into small white in an instant.
It is said that Ma Huateng has such an ability, when he faces the new products developed by his company, he can instantly become a small white like ordinary users, and then judge the advantages and disadvantages of the product from this small white position. The accuracy of this judgment is often the highest and most in line with the laws of the market.
This kind of person is like putting a switch in the brain, and can make every day like the first day.
Amazon's founder, Bezos, is said to have a day1 mechanism, and he asks himself to manage the company every day like the first day of entrepreneurship, and to think about the first 4 questions every day:
Have you really locked your eyes on the customer;
There is no resistance to formalism;
There is no positive adaptation to external trends;
There is no quick decision making.
These four questions can help him make decisions quickly without being affected by events that have occurred in the past.
If we can also set up such a reduction mechanism for ourselves, such as treating marriage, do we get up every morning and love our pillow people like the first day of love? Have we set ourselves some specific metrics to help us deal with our marital relationships?
I have 3 principles like this:
First, we must truly love each other;
Second, we must sincerely respect each other;
Third, when there is a dispute, first ease the emotions, and then distinguish between right and wrong.
You see, just review these three principles every morning and we'll go back to the original moment, and no matter what problems happen today, our decisions won't be too ridiculous.
- Second: Every time it's like the first time
The reason why the computer is better than us is that every decision he makes is independent.
For example, when the alpha dog plays Go, the decision of each move is to look at the whole from the moment and choose the first hand with the highest winning rate at present. But human chess players are often affected by the fact that they have just taken a bad breath, thus disrupting the current decision-making.
Zeng Guofan once said a sentence: the past is not in love, the present is not complicated, and the future is not welcome.
To put it bluntly, it is to make your decision-making moment and remain a fool. Say what is now, what is past, what is not said about the future.
I mentioned on the previous show that a friend who speculates in stocks, every time he buys this stock, he will evaluate the operation and development of the company, but once he buys, he only cares about one thing, up or down. Losing money, he considered that after losing so much, he would definitely have to wait for the rise to come back and sell it; when he made money, he considered that it would definitely rise again, and I would sell it again if it didn't rise.
You see, this way of making decisions has nothing to do with the present, only with the ups and downs that have occurred in the past. The rate of error in such decision-making is high.
If you can always remember zeng guofan's words: the past is not in love, the present is not complicated, and the future is not welcome.
Treat every decision as an independent, first decision, then, your brain is equivalent to an alpha dog, and you have obtained a spiritual device for independent decision-making.
- Third: Play unlimited games, not limited games
We often hear business gurus say that only those who are successful through the cycle are the real winners.
In fact, it is to tell us that business is an infinite game, and the victory or defeat of a single game is not enough to evaluate a person's success or failure.
The same is true in life, such as married life, the purpose is that two people love each other and live forever, not a victory or two quarrels. Another example is the career career, the purpose is to achieve personal growth, not one or two promotions and salary increases.
When you think of what you're doing so far, it's an infinite game, and the goal is to keep the game going, not to end it quickly.
At this time, you will understand where the goal and direction of the decision are at the moment.
It is not easy to achieve this realm. Because it's against our billions of years of biological evolutionary instincts. When ordinary people face instincts, they often tie their hands, but the reason why masters are masters is because they will install many spiritual devices on themselves to fight against instincts and intuition.
Well, this is the inspiration that "crocodile thinking" brings us, if you also have a good way to make decisions, write your opinion in the message area, I will read every message.
By the way, let me tell you that the third season of our mental model has officially launched since a few days. In this season's content, we will carry out a journey of thinking and cognition for the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs, hoping to help more friends on the road of entrepreneurship to cross the mountain of cognition and obtain subversive traditional thinking mode.
If you're an entrepreneur, follow me, and the next issue will give you a more disruptive mindset.