The Huddle Wisdom Blog

Zombies and Bayes Theorem. What?!

Okay, bear with me. Sometimes, our intuition leads us into perilous situations.

Our brains try to be helpful...but because of mental shortcuts...it doesn't always work out so well for us... So...we have to pause...think and rationalise.

Although we cannot predict the outcomes of a bad event.

We can increase the probability of a favourable outcome if we learn how to obtain good reliable data and information so we stand a better chance of avoiding bad outcomes...

it's not guaranteed to help us do that (such is life) but we can improve our odds of survival.

Here's the link to some other good mental models to help you survive!

www.huddlewisdom.com/gettools

WARNING: Contrarian readers only

Can shared values and ideas harm mature organisations?

One might think it shouldn't it can.

Sometimes the wisdom of crowds is in fact stupid.

The wise crowd is an organism where the constituent parts work and think independently.

In the absence of this...you lose diversity of thought and information.

The chance of staying innovative decreases.

People start to make decisions based on the actions of others in the organisation rather than their own.

So, in times of crisis, large complex systems that has all its parts linked in rigid fashion will fail to adapt.

You'll often observe chain reactions resulting in unfavorable outcomes.

Independent thinkers leave the organisation...which increases homogeneity and with that you have decreasing adaptability

You know how the story ends. You have what we call an information cascade that ends in what I call an avalanche.

...

I talk alot about empathy being the way that we ‘get in’ and connect with our kids but it is not the same as bending to their will at every turn. 

We as adults need to show them that there are boundaries that need to be respected in life; be it the law in your jurisdiction, someone’s private space or simply learning that they are allowed to delineate their own boundaries. 

We can feel bad of course when our kids push back against us when we set limits with them. We may carry our own baggage that makes it hard for us to enforce rules but this is not in their best interests or yours. You’ve heard it said that you can build a rod for your own back if you take the path of least resistance. 

Perhaps you grew up in a household that was strict, rigid, inflexible or you had a laissez faire upbringing. Whatever the case, our upbringing has an impact on where we draw the line when it comes to rules and boundaries. It’s...

Cool.

We all know a bit of exercise helps our mood.

I'm not typically a fan of systematic reviews or meta-analyses (to me they just rehash original papers that may or may not be that great in the first place)...in any case...this one seems fairly robust...CLICK HERE

2.5hours/week of walking can reduce depression risk a bit.

But a bit is sometimes what we need to make a start on our recovery journeys.

Several of my patients struggle to get out of bed.

Using a behavioural activation approach.

I tell them to just focus on getting one foot out of bed...then the other foot...then sit up...etc...you get the picture.

2.5 hours a week = 0.35hr a day = ~21 minutes walking a day = maybe 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon

Walking around the neighbourhood to get your 20 minutes seems like a big enough hurdle but at least we know that there's a point for doing it!

Poos and wees.

It's funny right? I think it is.

Or maybe it's not.

Whatever the case, poos and wees, are poos and wees.

A session with one of my patients today took an interesting turn.

They, like many of my patients suffer from mood and anxiety problems.

They feel as though life takes them for a ride.

The slings and arrows of life and such...they feel like they have no control over the things that happen to them in life.

Our perceptions of our reality can truly affect how we feel and think about our lives; but it doesn't change reality.

The only thing we have control over is how we think.

We must find a way to 'slow' down what happens between what we sense/perceive and the resultant feeling that happens next - which might be joy, sadness or anger.

Watch these videos here if you want to learn how to regain control over your mind and your emotions. 

Is it poo?

So what if it is?

BTW if you wanna learn some more good stuff that'll help...

I’ve had a few patients who haven’t been getting better fast and it doesn’t feel good. I’ve felt like a failure and I thought it useful to share my reflections. 

We/I tend to have lopsided priorities to the exclusion of other things in life, such that my dogged pursuit of reaching perfection puts me at risk of burning out or feeling Like i’ve fallen short as a human being because I know that i can lean way too hard on achieving that elusive goal of perfection.  

I’m quite aware now that as i say this, many people feel the same. 

We all struggle intensely with things we don’t like about ourselves and we act in ways that maintain those very concerns - for example the constant checking that other people respect us intensifies unhappiness because we hyperfocus on things that might prove people don’t respect or like us. Or we avoid situations that make us uncomfortable so we don’t have to be...

I really believe that. 

We live in an age of spin as Dave Chappelle says. 

And we are trained to be suspicious and wary of those of us who appear to be unlike us. 

We may even be prone to look down on people who seem naive and overly-courteous or sympathetic to others for the sake of it.

But it is this very thing that makes us extraordinary. To dare to believe in the good in others is to believe in the good in us. 

Imagine how good it would be if we thought of each other as good?

Dare to think different. To feel different. Wouldn't that be something.

How do I teach my kids to empathise?

Empathy is critical for authentic human connection.

It helps you became much more impactful in the world because it facilitates trust - which is crucial for winning hearts and minds. 

Empathy as a construct is multidimensional. I’ve talked about various attributes that comprise empathic ability before www.huddlewisdom.com/blog/3partempathy

...but there's still a lot that we are learning about empathy and its expression.

...we're also learning more about how we can effectively systematise and foster skills to improve our empathic capacity.

A myriad childhood experiences influences the development of empathic skill. The manner in which carers relate, communicate and transmit mental models of the world across to us. Cultural factors and social medial influences also can’t be ignored. All such things shapes young minds.

Parents/teachers clearly then have a critical role in the world....

Most parents and teachers i think would like to know that their kids could persevere through hardship if they so choose to. 

What sorts of hardships we want them to tackle is a little subjective. Which ones do we let slide?

Some kids are more than happy going through some hardship if it means playing Tekken for hours till they reach the boss at the end of the game right? Is that resilience? I suppose it could be described as that. 

We always have to consider things in context. 

We need to have some idea of the things we value in order to determine whether something is worth pursuing or not; worth persevering hardships in order to reach the ‘prize’. 

Why am I saying this? Well, I think if we can determine early on the things that really matter then we don’t have to waste our energy persevering with things that don’t matter. 

So resilience is not a character trait in my view. It’s...

Winters in our lives can make us feel inert. We might erroneously think that we're stagnating; except that the reality is that this is our opportunity to take stock, rest and store energy we need for new growth. Allow yourself to be still and reconsider what your intentions are for this season. Remember goals are fleeting, but growing into your intention is forever.

What are your intentions for your life? for your children? for your world?