Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

by Shane Parrish

While the rest of us are chasing victory, the best in the world know they must avoid losing before they can win. It turns out this is a surprisingly effective strategy.

In order to get the results we desire, we must do two things. We must first create the space to reason in our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and second, we must deliberately use that space to think clearly. Once you have mastered this skill, you will find you have an unstoppable advantage.

No one tries to win the moment at the expense of the decade, and yet that is often how it goes.

When we make a decision to prove we’re right rather than get the best outcome possible, we only end up with a mess to clean up later.

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.

A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.

You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them.

Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an id...

The greatest aid to judgment is starting from ...

Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned.

ordinary moments determine your position, and your position determines your options.

Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to make the future easier or harder.

Never forget that your unconscious is smarter than you, faster than you, and more powerful than you. It may even control you. You will never know all of its secrets. —CORDELIA FINE, A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

Rationality is wasted if you don’t know when to use it.

So our first step in improving our outcomes is to train ourselves to identify the moments when judgment is called for in the first place, and pause to create space to think clearly.

mastery over the ordinary moments that make the future easier or harder is not only possible, it’s the critical ingredient to success and achieving your long-term goals.

Reacting without reasoning makes every situation worse.

We’re naturally wired to organize the world into a hierarchy.

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.