Forked from ryanpitts/The Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done
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November 5, 2022 22:15
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Notes from Michael Dearing's "The Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done," so I don't need to look through slides every time. Source: http://quarry.stanford.edu/xapm1111126lse/docs/02_LSE_Cognitive.pdf
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| Five recurring, automatic patterns of thought (aka cognitive distortions) among people who get extraordinary stuff done in Silicon Valley. | |
| 1. Personal Exceptionalism: "I am special." | |
| Definition: a macro sense that you are in the top of your cohort, your work is snowflake special, or that you are destined to have experiences well outside the bounds of "normal;" not to be confused with arrogance or high self-esteem | |
| Benefit: resilience, stamina, charisma | |
| Deadly risk: assuming macro exceptionalism means micro exceptionalism, brittleness | |
| 2. Dichotomous Thinking: "X is sh*t. Y is genius." | |
| Definition: being extremely judgmental of people, experiences, things; highly opinionated at the extremes; sees black and white, little grey | |
| Benefit: achieves excellence frequently | |
| Deadly risk: perfectionism | |
| 3. Correct Overgeneralization: "I see two dots and draw the right line." | |
| Definition: making universal judgments from limited observations and being right a lot of the time | |
| Benefits: saves time | |
| Deadly risk: addiction to instinct and indifference to data | |
| 4. Blank Canvas Thinking: "Painting by numbers isn't art. And I want to make art." | |
| Definition: sees own life as a blank canvas, not a paint by numbers | |
| Benefits: no sense of coloring outside the lines, creates surprises | |
| Deadly risk: "Ars gratia artis," failure to launch, failure to scale | |
| 5. Schumpeterianism: "I am a creative destruction machine." | |
| Definition: sees creative destruction as natural, necessary, and as their vocation | |
| Benefits: fearlessness, tolerance for destruction and pain | |
| Deadly risk: heartless ambition, alienation |
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