A Guide to Clear Thinking (Read-Along)

Here's an article I came across from that had a good lesson to teach. It's about self-serving bias, and how we protect ourselves and blame others when we feel like the idea we have of ourselves is challenged. As always, we'll mine it for vocabulary, so make sure you write down the words that catch your eye. 

Let me know what you think.

Transcript

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On this episode of English with Dane, we are going to read an article together. We're gonna mine it for vocabulary, we're gonna clear up, vamos a aclarar, we're gonna clear up any tricky phrases or expressions we find along the way, and most importantly, we are going to learn a few valuable lessons on how to think more clearly, which I think is something we could all benefit from. Ojo que se usa from cuando usamos to benefit. You benefit from something. So that's the plan. I was recently talking to a listener who said she enjoyed the episodes where we don't center everything around the English language and instead learn from real-world content. So I thought a read-along would be perfect for this week's episode. I honestly enjoyed these episodes more too because it gives me a chance to dive into things that are interesting to me, and I'm sure to a lot of you as well. So make sure you have your vocabulary list open for this episode because we are bound to come across or to find some vocab that you can start incorporating right away to help you express yourself more accurately, which is of course the goal. So let's do this. You are listening to episode 50 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. It was written by Nir Eyal, who was one of these dudes who writes about habits and productivity and stuff. I'll link the article in the description of the episode in case you want to know more. So this article is about self-serving bias, which is a type of bias, a type of bias that explains or sheds light on how people tend to attribute their success to their own abilities or character, but blame failures on external factors. I know I'm going to learn something from all of this, so let's dive in. It says, One Sunday morning early in my career, I arrived at work to find a colleague of mine already there. We were working on a critical piece of software for an upcoming covert operation, so a secret operation. He approached me shortly after I sat down at my desk. That code you were writing was supposed to be done two days ago, he said. The operation is tonight, and we can't go without you. We still have to test. You've put the whole thing in jeopardy. People are relying on us. To put something in jeopardy means to ponerloom peligro. So again, you've put the whole thing in jeopardy. People are relying on us. In the post-9-11 world, we were all working non-stop and were under a lot of pressure. No one was sleeping more than five or six hours a night. Our health was questionable as we injected ourselves with coffee and jolt cola once or twice an hour. Jolt Cola, by the way, was like the grandfather of the energy drinks we have today. Their slogan was all the sugar and twice the caffeine. All the sugar and twice the caffeine. Great! Great stuff, Mark. It's the caffeine. They didn't give a crap. They were really unapologetic with their marketing. I don't know if they still make it because I assume things are more regulated now. Y por cierto, a jolt spelled J-O-L-T is a sudden shock or a sudden movement. But metaphorically, it's used to refer to a sudden burst of energy or stimulation. Back to the article. So our health was questionable as we injected ourselves with coffee and jolt cola once or twice an hour. We were writing complex, mission-critical software at the lowest levels of the operating system. Difficult stuff even in the best of circumstances. There was no manual for this stuff, and you couldn't simply Google how to do it. We were breaking new ground. The time pressure didn't help. We were doing all we could, yet it never seemed like enough. And after years of 60-hour work weeks and constant pressure, our personal and professional relationships were strained and starting to crack. If something is strained, it is weakened, debilitados, stressed or tensed. Like when you strain a muscle, which means you overextended it or injured it. So their personal and professional relationships were strained. My response felt completely natural. But I had all these meetings and got pulled into this other project, and the director said it was top priority, and I planned to go work on it in Friday morning, but the bus got stuck in the snow and it took two hours to get to work. I thought I kept my composure pretty well, but my inner dialogue was more defensive. It went something like this Dude, cut me some slack. It's Sunday, I haven't had a vacation in years, I spend way more time with you than with my girlfriend, I'm doing the best I can, and nothing I do ever seems to be enough. So you're telling me this wasn't your fault, he said innocently, setting a trap I didn't see. Look, a lot of stuff came up that I couldn't control, I said. Don't worry, I'll get it done today. That's bullshit. It is your fault. Stop making excuses. He turned his back and started walking away. Do what needs to be done, lo que se tiene que hacer. Do what needs to be done, or we'll have to call off the operation because of you. Cancelarla, we'll have to call off the operation because of you. He said without a backward glance. So, ni miro atrás, without a backward glance. I suddenly felt energized, and not with the positive energy of surging toward a goal or moving toward a goal. The defaults took control. This was ego-defending energy. I was defending my territory, defending my very sense of self. There's no greater source of renewable energy in the world than when you're defending your own self-image. While my colleague didn't threaten me physically, he threatened how I saw myself as working hard and getting things done. And when someone threatens, I menasa, when someone threatens how you see yourself, you stop thinking and start reacting. That's the line that really stuck with me. When someone threatens how you see yourself, you stop thinking and start reacting. I began writing up a list of all the things I'd done, que había hecho, I'd done that week. How many hours I worked, how many projects I'd worked on, how many people and operations I'd helped. As I rehearsed, as I rehearsed these points, I got angrier and angrier. The inertia of my negative emotions turned into a powerful doom loop. I wasn't conscious of the path I was on. I was reacting, not reasoning. My power to make excuses felt limitless. Who is this guy to tell me it's my fault? He doesn't see what I see. I emailed him the list. It filled over a page. His response arrived a few moments later. I don't care. It's your responsibility to our team and our mission to get your shit done. And if you can't own that, learn from it, and figure it out for next time, I don't want to work with you. What the f My response moved beyond mental and became physical. My heart rate increased, and my eyes narrowed as I lost control of my feelings and thoughts. That short email derailed me, that short email derailed me for a few hours. All the energy we put into defending ourselves comes at the expense of the very thing that would make the situation better. Moving on and doing what needs to be done. It's a choice we don't realize we're making. Had someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, Um, you're about to spend three hours of energy on this, are you sure you want to do that? I would have said no. While that email was neither nice nor fair, it was kind and it changed my life. Sure, my colleague could have been gentler. Mas amable. But that didn't mean he was wrong. Too often the people we ask for feedback are kind but not nice. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won't because it's uncomfortable. A kind person will tell us what holds us back even when it's uncomfortable. A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they're worried about hurting our feelings. No wonder we end up thinking, we end up thinking other people will be interested in our excuses. My team was unmoved by the fact that the bus was late and that it wasn't my fault. All that mattered was the success of the operation, and results are what it usually boils down to. So results are the most essential factor, let's say. That's what it boils down to. No one cares about your excuses as much as you do. In fact, no one cares about your excuses at all, except you. This next part is called, no one cares, it's your fault. Refreshing. When people's actions have outcomes that don't line up or don't match, that don't line up with how they see themselves, they tend to insulate their egos by blaming other people or unfavorable circumstances. So culpamos a otra gente, we blame other people or unfavorable circumstances. Psychologists even have a term for this tendency. They call it self-serving bias, a habit of evaluating things in ways that protect or enhance our self-image. Statements like, it was a great idea, just poorly executed. We did the best we could, and we never should have been in this situation in the first place, are often manifestations of this bias. Self-serving is un adjetivo compuesto, by the way, so with a hyphen con guion, self-serving. Here's the thing, it might be true. Maybe it really wasn't a bad idea, just bad execution. Maybe you really did do the best you could. Maybe you never should have been in that situation in the first place. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter. No one cares. None of it changes the outcome or solves the problems that still remain. Next part is called not your fault, it's still your responsibility. Just because something happened that was outside of your control doesn't mean it's not your responsibility to deal with it the best you can. Our desire to protect ourselves prevents us from moving forward. It's tempting to absolve yourself, throwing your hands up and claiming you have no control over the situation you've landed in, in la que has caído you have landed in. And sure, sometimes that's true. There are circumstances of chance that have a negative impact. People suffer misfortune all the time for reasons beyond their control, más allá de su control, beyond their control. Stray bullets, diseases, getting struck by a drunk driver. Complaining does nothing to change the present situation you find yourself in, though. Thinking about how it wasn't your fault doesn't actually make anything better. The consequences are still yours to deal with. Always focus on the next move, the one that gets you closer or further from where you want to go. If you play poker, you learn this intuitively. Ojo esa pronunciación, intuitively. If you play poker, you learn this intuitively. You're dealt a hand based mostly on luck. Feeling sorry for yourself, complaining about the hand you were dealt, or blaming others for how they played their hands only distracts you from what you can control. Your responsibility is to play the hand as best you can. You can put energy into things you control or things you don't control. All the energy you put towards things you don't control comes out of the energy you can put towards the things you can. While no one chooses difficult circumstances, adversity provides opportunity. It allows us to test ourselves and see who we've become. The test isn't against other people though, it's against our former selves. Are we better than we were yesterday? When circumstances are easy, it's hard to distinguish ordinary people from extraordinary ones, or to see the extraordinary within ourselves. As the Roman slave Publilius Cyrus once said, anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm. The path to being exceptional begins when you decide to be responsible for your actions no matter the situation. Exceptional people know they can't change the hand they've been dealt and don't waste their time wishing for a better one. They focus instead on how they're going to play the cards they have to achieve the best result. They don't hide behind others. The best people rise to the challenge, whatever it is. They choose to live up to live up to their best self-image instead of surrendering to their defaults. There's a collocation there that caught my eye, by the way. You rise to a challenge. We tend to use the word rise with challenge. Or occasion too. You rise to the occasion, you rise to a challenge. If a team wins an important game, for example, and one player played really well, he or she rose to the occasion. Okay. You get it? Let's keep going. We're almost done. One of the most common mistakes people make is bargaining, like Nero Ciar, is bargaining with how the world should work instead of accepting how it does work. Anytime you find yourself or your colleagues complaining that's not right or that's not fair or it shouldn't be that way, you're bargaining, not accepting. You want the world to work in a way that it doesn't. Failing to accept how the world really works puts your time and energy toward proving how right you are, oh, how right you are. When the desired results don't materialize, oh la pronunciation, materialize, it's easy to blame circumstances or others. I call this the wrong side of right. You're focused on your ego, not the outcome. Solutions appear when you stop bargaining and start accepting the reality of the situation. That's because focusing on the next move, rather than how you got there in the first place, opens you up to a lot of possibilities. When you put outcome over ego, you get better results. Dang. I feel like this hit close to home. I feel like there are times where I definitely let my ego get the best of me, and I end up just defending myself to myself or others. It does feel like I'm protecting myself instead of dealing with reality at times. This was definitely an eye-opening read. I feel like we do this with stuff that isn't productivity related to. I think a lot of our petty arguments with our partners or family are just purely ego-driven. We fall into dynamics with people, and it's like we start kind of feeling like we have to deny the narratives they have around us, because it's easier to deny and deflect and blame than to actually validate what they are saying, and maybe just looking inward hacia adentro, inward, in a non-judgmental, non-destructive, and neutral way. This probably happens to people who work in office a lot, right? And let me know if I'm way off base or if I'm far from right, let's say, if I'm way off base. If you work in an office as part of a team, you're probably always dealing with or wrestling with the idea of how you see yourself versus how others see you versus how you want them to see you. And it's not that people aren't doing this on a daily basis, but when you're at work, it's different because it's like a constant assessment of competence. And that assessment determines if do you continue to get paid or if you get paid more. It's kind of a high-stakes situation for a lot of people. And then to tie it back to English, if you work in English, there's also that layer, it's a kappa, that layer of showing that you are good at what you do and that you're smart and funny and professional, but through the filter of a language that isn't your first. It's a lot. But keep it going. Keep working at it and stay curious about the language, you'll get to where you want to be. I have no doubt. And I invite you to assess, I can cis. I invite you to assess if you think you are guilty of this self-serving bias. Like I said, I know I am at times, and I think coming to terms with it is a step in the right direction. So take a step back and see if you're fooling yourself like the rest of us. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. I hope you got something from it. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, share it with a friend who would also like it. And don't forget to follow the show on Spotify or wherever you listen, and give it a five-star rating if you haven't. Let's get English with Dane to reach more people. Alright, talk soon. Later, you can't get a little bit more.