This is a talk I have successfully given 3x prior for over 120 people, and it's been profound the response I've had. This talk is about the structure of evolution, and self-evolution, in particular.
INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION LINK: https://bit.ly/personal-paradigms
It contains some solid frameworks for developing more resilient, flexible, and accurate "roadmaps" for decision-making and life-having.
The agenda:
- What is a paradigm? Definitions & Examples
- How are paradigms powerful? How are they limited?
- Paradigm Shifts
- Some Frameworks to Explore
2. Talk about the importance, and power of assessing our perspective.
Stephen Covey and Thomas Kuhn’s model of paradigms and
paradigm shifting (system transformations from the inside-out).
Using a coherent framework that utilizes philosophy, scientific
thinking, history, and empirical evidence.
Main Sources
1. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey
2. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
3. How Did I Get Here?, Barbara de Angelis
4. The Myths of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky
5. Sapiens (A Brief History of Humankind), Yuval Noah Harari
6. Personal Experience, other sources… etc
Purpose
3. Disclaimer
This is a talk about the nature of transformation.
Not a direct how-to guide. I don’t have the power to
tell you how to transform your own life.
4. Some Assumptions
The existence of absolute principles (sorry, relativists)
Principles are proven, enduring guidelines for human conduct. There are certain universal and timeless
principles that govern human effectiveness. Objective principles govern human growth and happiness.
“You reap what you sow”
“You cannot have trust without being trustworthy”
“Actions are more important than words”
E.g., the truth of the Law of Gravity (and other laws) is not relative to the subject.
5. What is a paradigm? Definitions & Examples
How are paradigms powerful? How are they limited?
Paradigm Shifts
Some Frameworks
Agenda
6. Agenda
What is a paradigm? Definitions & Examples
How are paradigms powerful? How are they limited?
Paradigm Shifts
Some Frameworks
7. Paradigm
Borrowed term from The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (1962), as it applies to the progress of
science. Later adopted by Stephen Covey.
A paradigm is a set of assumptions, concepts,
values, and practices that constitutes a way of
viewing reality, both in terms of:
● the way things are
● the way things should be
Synonyms: ways of thinking, models,
frameworks
8. Central Thesis of Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Big progress comes from revolutionary breakthroughs.
Science has advanced not through the steady collection of new ideas but
through occasional revolutionary explosions of new knowledge.
(aka, the Kuhn Cycle)
11. The kuhn cycle applies not just to science, but to any body of
knowledge whose use is critical and whose construction is
evolutionary.
12. (Stephen Covey) If science gets closer to the true laws of
nature through the Kuhn cycle, then human beings get closer
to the true laws of human nature, happiness, and growth
through a similar cycle.
As a result, we are also capable of explosive shifts in personal
transformation.
13. Think of a map
You are heading to New York on a road trip
You grab a map
The map says New York but it’s actually a map of the state of Pennsylvania
...but you don’t realize this
14. “How can i improve my trip?”
Change your behavior
Change your attitude
Go faster, cut corners, find shortcuts, triple-check the map
Stay positive no matter the obstacles you encounter
16. If the ladder is not leaning
against the right wall, every
step we take just gets us to the
wrong place faster.
-- Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
17. Improving your behaviors or
attitudes doesn’t matter if you are
using the wrong paradigm
You’ll still end up lost.
Bad opinions are very costly.
-- Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
18. Accurate paradigms is a prerequisite to
the importance of better behaviors & attitudes
ATTITUDES BEHAVIORS & HABITS
PARADIGMS
22. The world’s most accurate
map (2016, Japan)
Also see: This funny West
Wing Clip (Mercator
Projection vs Peter-Gahls)
23. People are seldom aware that they have paradigms
“We don’t know what we don’t know” (blind spots, the unknown unknowns)
Being told we are wrong isn’t pleasant; can feel invalidating & accusatory (the ego) when one’s
sense of self importance is wrapped up in one’s paradigms
24. Blind Men & an Elephant
While your subjective
experience of something can
be true, our experience is
inherently limited
- Inability to account for other truths
- Inability to view the whole truth
- Mistake in assuming that the way we see
things is the way they really are or should
be
25. We do not see the world as it is,
but we see the world as we are
each of us looking through the unique lens of
our own experiences, positions,
predispositions, and biases
26. Only when we recognize our
relative perspectives can we
begin to shift from thinking
about right & wrong to
thinking in terms of
conflicts of paradigms
27. The problem with experience is that
we think we’ve seen it all.
when we stop growing
28. Thinking in terms of conflicts of
paradigms leads us to transition from...
“But that can’t be true...” → “I feel that…”
Giving advice → Giving our perspective
Listening with the intent to reply → Listening with the intent to understand
Fearing diversity → Embracing diversity
Viewing challenges as an attack → viewing challenge as a learning opportunity
30. How we identify ourselves (who we think we
are) as Democrats/liberals versus
Republicans/conservatives was the largest
predictor of social distance -- more than
where we stand on the issues.
- The substance of the issues themselves
- What it says about a person
“the identity-based elements of
ideology are capable of driving
heightened levels of affective
polarization against outgroup
ideologues, even at low levels of policy
attitude extremity or constraint.”
31. What is a paradigm? Definitions & Examples
How are paradigms powerful? How are they limited?
Paradigm Shifts
Some Frameworks
Agenda
32.
33. . ParadigmShift .
A profoundchange in a fundamental model or perceptionof events
(Kuhn) A revolutionoccurs when [one] encounters anomalies that cannot be
explained by the accepted paradigmswithin which progresshas been made.
34. Examples of Paradigm Shifts
Work harder
Work smarter
The “80/20 rule”: “80% of the results come from 20% of the effort”
Best way to motivate people is extrinsically
High performance comes from satisfying intrinsic human
needs
The rise of Wikipedia over MSN Encarta
Satisfying needs of autonomy, mastery, and purpose > carrot-and-stick
35. Like a frog boiling in water
“death by a thousand cuts”
aka, creeping normality
A major change can be accepted as the normal
situation if it happens slowly, in unnoticed
increments, when it would be regarded as
objectionable if it took place in a single step or short
period (Wikipedia)
● (Military) “Divide & Conquer”
● (Ecology) Climate change,
economic degradation
● (Technology) Cyberattacks;
privacy erosion
38. We experience a gap between what where we thought we’d
be, and where we actually are. We meet the question, “are
you really happy being where you are right now?” with
feelings of daunt/ uncertainty/ sadness, instead of
enthusiasm, energy, gratitude.
- Expectations of what we hoped would happen versus
what actually happened
- We find ourselves in a toxic relationship that we feel painful
staying in and leaving
- A job we counted on vanishes, we feel lost and purposeless
- Our health or the health of a loved one turns for the worst
- Seeing our life for what is really is instead of what we want it to
be.. (impending) quarter-life, mid-life crisis
We no longer recognize the landscape, emotions, or
circumstances we find ourselves in.
…we eventually have to ask ourselves, “How did I get here?”
39. Understanding that you are lost.
We acknowledge this by asking ourselves...
“How did I get here?”
We begin to seek
autobiographical coherence.
Sources: How Did I Get Here? by Barbara de Angelis, The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
40. -- László Babai’s favorite response to students in my undergraduate math class (who were
answering questions wrongly)
László Babai is a renowned mathematician. Has authored over 180 academic papers, was cited in
an episode of Stargate Atlantis, teaches math to 19-year-olds
“I do not understand!”
41. “By simply writing about the past, people are able to
gain a sense of meaning and order about their
significant life events, thus affording them the chance to
come to terms with these events and reconcile
themselves to their regrets”
-- The Myths of Happiness
autobiographical coherence
42. Two ways to react to asking the question, “How did I get here?”
Reject Accept
Short-term
Long-term
● Inconvenient
● Discomfort
● Experience uncertainty, loss of direction
● The number of questions outweigh the
number of answers
● Convenient
● Sense of comfort (familiarity)
● Conflict management
"There cannot be a crisis next week.
My schedule is already full.” (Henry
Kissinger)
● Tremendously taxing, ongoing energy
○ Addiction
○ Distracting ourselves with work, exercise,
caretaking others
○ Magical thinking
● We do not have access to inner peace
→ irritability, depression, anger, exhaustion
● We disconnect and turn off in every sense
→ unable to discern what we’re feeling / why
→ emotions as mysterious, uncomfortable
● We gain the skill of self-deception
● We open ourselves to insight,
revelation, and healing
● We gain greater access to inner peace
● How we are thinking is more connected
to how we are feeling
● A clear highway between our inner
self and our outer expressions (inner
peace, authenticity)
→ our emotions are friendly
compasses
● We gain the skill of changing more
easily in the future
● Greater interpersonal ease
48. CtA study:
#1 predictor of career success is “our ability to make
meaning from our experiences”
“Have strong opinions, weakly held”
49. “We must ponder on our forsaken goals, we must do it,
and we must admit that we have lost a cherished part of
ourselves, and at the same time, not be consumed by it.”
-- The Myths of Happiness
50. Persevere and endure a (long) process of questioning and
contemplation
Asking “How did I get here?” guides us to explore new
paradigms
You are somewhere. Where is it?
Finding out where you are, makes you no longer lost.
“Dig deep enough and you will hit something”. You’re going
to discover something you didn’t expect and could have
never known… without digging
“We know who we are when we know who we are not”
STEP TWO
51. It’s a hard science.
M&E: Monitoring and Evaluation
Management Consulting Methodology.
● Ask key questions.
● Identify pivotal sub-issues.
● (M&E) Collect enough relevant data over time.
Produce good routine data.
● Evaluations should be cheap.
52. Name your experience
Allows you to step back from your experiences to begin to
observe it more objectively.
By naming, we can
● Identify our experiences as something that others have
gone through before us (and have faced before).
● Identify key questions to ask, and sub-issues to drill
down to.
● Enable you to draw a new roadmap, and start the
process of evaluation and improvement.
Regain a grasp of stability: “I am here”
STEP THREE
53. “If you came to class only to leave without having
experienced anything unexpected... then did you really
accomplish what you came here to do?”
-- An old college professor
55. + We feel lost less often!
+ Less wasted energy
+ Can focus savored energies on other
things
+ Exploring new lands we didn’t know existed
on our newly refined maps
+ Profound cascading changes in your
attitudes and behaviors
STEP FIVE: PROFIT!
ATTITUDES BEHAVIORS & HABITS
PARADIGMS
56. Paradigm Shifts are a cycle
Observing anomalies that do not fit our existing
models for how things work
Shakes our faith in our paradigms
The problem is seen from different perspectives
and alternative paradigms are explored
Various alternative paradigms compete. A winner
emerges.
We return to routine. The transformation becomes
invisible
59. Our minds are wired to deceive us.
"Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers
most easily fall--they are the real distorting prisms of
human nature."
-- Francis Bacon
Father of the Scientific Method; author of the quote “knowledge is power”
Responsible for linking technology to science (which were separate fields)
60. Our blind spots grow like
moss.
When we aren’t looking at
them, attending to them,
they grow from our neglect.
Improving the accuracy of
our paradigms requires
constant prudence
61. Increasing psychological flexibility
One Solution: Participating in therapy
Having a (trained) objective third party to reflect and
work with.
Different tools in clinical psychology:
● Psychoanalytic Therapy
● DBT/CBT: Dialectical Behavioral Therapy /
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
● ACT: Acceptance and Commitment-based
Therapy
Improving our paradigms by…
CBT Model
Order of model emergence
in the field of clinical
psychology
(less to more empirically
backed methods)
62. Increasing psychological flexibility
ACT (Acceptance and
Commitment-based Therapy)
- Developed within a coherent theoretical and
philosophical framework
- empirically based psychological intervention
- uses acceptance and mindfulness strategies, together
with commitment and behavior change strategies, to
increase psychological flexibility
Improving our paradigms by…
63.
64. ● Remaining wary about being overconfident (assessing
your ego). #behumble
● “The Map is Not the Territory”
○ Recognizing the heavy cost of bad opinions, the
foundational importance of truth (accurate
paradigms). #seektruth
○ Critically questioning and evaluating other people’s
truths (most people are wrong)
● Stress-testing your paradigms: having smart people
challenge you, giving you feedback
Improving our paradigms by
66. We can run out of emotional energy
“I need to allocate this more wisely”
(watch where I spend. Invest early)
emotional “bank” model
May 2010. See article from The Economist
67. Happiness as an
ecosystem
Ecosystem: “A community of separate yet
interacting organisms”.
A model for how robust, self-sustaining
systems can come to be
Made of many mutually reinforcing parts.
Example:
Exercise...
...and Social relationships
...and Sources of Mastery (Job, Projects)
...and Meditation
....and Financial Wealth
...and Dancing & Listening to Music
A self-sustaining system of happiness
68. ✓ Mutually Exclusive
✓ Collectively Exhaustive
aka, MECE (“me-see”)
Some examples...
What makes a “good”
framework?
69. “Is that a Main Dish or a Side Dish?”
If it’s a side dish… don’t make it
your whole meal.
I believe the only one who has the power to transform their lives is themselves.
Common among every major religion. Enduring over time. Universal and timeless.
These principles surface time and time again, and the degree to which people in society recognize and live in harmony with them moves them toward either survival and stability or disintegration and destruction.
Weaknesses of Relativism:
Inability to weigh choices and make decisions. Inability to evaluate or criticise bad things.
Doesn’t allow progress: there are no requirements for a “better” person or society. Inability to self-criticise.
Little reason to be moral than to “fit in”
The term “paradigms” comes from Thomas Kuhn’s revolutionary book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and is the basis for Stephen Covey’s eventual model of personal evolution, borrowing from this prevailing model of scientific evolution (the evolution of science).
(Redacted from Wikipedia) The publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge and triggered an ongoing worldwide assessment and reaction in—and beyond—those scholarly communities.
...Kuhn argued for an episodic model in which periods of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by periods of revolutionary science. The discovery of "anomalies" during revolutions in science leads to new paradigms. New paradigms then ask new questions of old data, move beyond the mere "puzzle-solving" of the previous paradigm, change the rules of the game and the "map" directing new research.
Kuhn examined the history of scientific progress to demonstrate that every major shift and progress made in science was a result of major breakthroughs that shattered old ways of thinking, occasional explosions in science that led to the proliferation of other discoveries and applications. We have these theories to thank for the tremendous advancements in technology, medicine, public policy, politics, computing, etc. that constitute our modern world
...We now know of this model of explosive transformation as the Kuhn Cycle.
Stephen Covey then adapted Kuhn’s cycle and applied it to personal development in his own revolutionary work, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
To understand paradigms, we can think of a map…
Not realizing that your map had a printing error that mislabeled New York on the territory of Pennsylvania, you start your road trip, and eventually ask yourself, “How can I improve my trip”?.... You can change your behavior (productivity habit making, becoming more efficient, planning your trip better, etc.), or your attitude (staying positive, etc.)....
...But no matter how you change your attitudes or behaviors, you’re still going to wound up lost.
Your paradigms are like the foundation of your house. Your attitudes the roof, your behaviors/habits the sidings.
If you build your house on the wrong foundation, no matter how strong you focused on building a strong roof or strong sidings, the whole thing is going to collapse anyways.
Above: tourist map of Manhattan
Below: aerial view of actual Manhattan
Why tourists always seem to cluster at certain parts of the city (Times Square, Central Park, WTC….) but not found elsewhere (East Village, Lower East Side, Greenwich….) because they are following these tourist maps that only illuminate tourism hotspots; they merely follow their maps, they do not see the real territory.
The world’s most accurate map (2016, Japan)
Also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVX-PrBRtTY
Yes, this can include you!
See Blind Men and an Elephant (Wikipedia)
This parable illustrates the lesson that: While your subjective experience of something can be true, our experience is inherently limited.
There is no such thing as an objective observer.
When I hear people talk about generalities of how reality is “really like”, I realize that I am simply learning more about themselves, about how they view the world.
This is a paradigm shift.
→ changes in behavior and atittudes.
What does it mean to be stubborn?
See also: “learning agility”. https://hbr.org/2015/06/improve-your-ability-to-learn
More primary source = https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/LearningAgility.pdf
Based on results from American National Election Studies (ANES), who conducted pre- and post- 2016 presidential election interviews, 2 months before and immediately after + a year after the 2016 election. Strength of results: “Pairwise correlations between identity-based and issue-based ideology are 0.34 in the SSI data and 0.33 in the ANES data. These are moderate to weak correlations, leaving plenty of room for differential effects.”
https://electionstudies.org/project/2016-time-series-study/
N=3090 pre-election, 2590 post-election
Opinion post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/people-dont-vote-for-want-they-want-they-vote-for-who-they-are/2018/08/30/fb5b7e44-abd7-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?utm_term=.e7fecee8cf8c
Click through in Presentation Mode to reveal messages
Source: Stephen Covey, 7 Habits
The captain had to realize:
It didn’t matter his status or ship size, if he was going to run into an immovable object
You cannot fight against an immovable object. You merely wreck yourself (in the same way, to abstract this a level up,principles are like lighthouses, immovable, true, unmoving no matter what. The only one who gets hurt when fighting against a true principle is not the principle but yourself.)
Black Swan Theory: there used to be an ancient saying that black swans do not exist, until they were discovered in Australia.
How could we have anticipated the black swan?… Answer: we can’t. Because we can’t know everything (“we are not God”)
Lesson:
We are blinded by our blindspots
Theory used to show that human beings are generally really bad at determining the risk of events happening if the events are highly improbable (events that are extremely difficult to predict)
Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature
Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. We prefer simple explanations merely because they are simpler.
We tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex things we don’t know.
The truth is, we have no idea why certain things happen (our explanations are often gross oversimplications or flat-out wrong)
When we begin to ask that question, “How the (f***) did I get here?”, we have two paths to choose from: do we pursue this question and focus our attentions on it (acceptance)? Or do we let it pass, forget it with time, or suppress ourselves from focusing on it (rejection)?
The problem with denial is that the long-term is really long compared to the short-term. We don’t see this usually (like a frog boiling in water) when we only think about the day-to-day.
Hardest, most courageous step: to sit in uncertainty, still wake up every day, and decide to still address the questions at hand, despite feeling like we are far away from the answers (right now).
One of the best words I’d learned is “yet”: “I am not where I want to be right now… YET.” “I don’t have the answers…yet”. “I am not who I want to be...yet”.
Recognizing the temporal nature of our current state means that we can move beyond it. So keep going.
Source: field of M&E (Monitoring & Evaluation), frameworks
Sometimes, not knowing what’s happening is a symptom that a LOT is happening. Knowing exactly what’s happening could be a symptom that you are going very slowly.
-- Barbara de Angelis
(Skim)
To the left: CBT worksheet for challenging automatic thoughts
To the right: Scientific Method
“Fail fast”
It’s all the same.
See also: “learning agility”. https://hbr.org/2015/06/improve-your-ability-to-learn
More primary source = https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/LearningAgility.pdf
Partly inspired by The Principles by Bridgewater Associates’ CEO Ray Dalio (principles.com)
Where do you spend your emotional energy?
→ Curtail experiences day-to-day to focus on sources of fulfillment, cutting ties with that which drains you, making space for that which fulfills you.
→ A process that needs patience, time and continual investment to happen.
See https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2010/12/16/the-u-bend-of-life
Here is some help visualizing your own mortality: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
This comes from the field/industry of management consulting, which I used to be in.
http://www.streetofwalls.com/finance-training-courses/consulting-case-study-training/consulting-case-study-101-frameworks/
From “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/frameworksofamy/
Why you should work smarter, not harder.
The world’s longest longitudinal study on happiness (80+ years) from Harvard University showed that the #1 predictor of well-being over time is the quality and quantity of your relationships. Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/
Why perfectionism is flawed.
:D
More recommended reads:
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking
The Principles by Ray Dalio