I have been on a YouTube listening campaign, trying to determine the legitimate science behind The 365 Commitment. Yesterday I was exploring research in cognitive behavior from Artificial Intelligence theorists. Today while I was running I listened to Kelly McConigal and Daniel Kahneman, two researchers and authors in the world of neuroscience and psychology.
Interestingly enough all of them have broken the human mind down into two parts. The first being the instinctual, more primitive and intuition based mind and the second being the thinking brain, where calculations are made and value based long term goals are considered. What they have come to some conclusions on, is something I learned trying to master the game of chess.
A chess player learns that solid intuition, or impulse is built only after thousands of hours of repetition and pattern recognition. Most people think that a good chess player is one that can really think ahead many moves, and do some serious computational analysis. This is true, and a chess player that can think fast, and keep track of lines of thought in ones head is definitely going to be naturally good – however – that will never make up for sheer pattern recognition. Trained habitual instinct well honed after thousands of hours of experience will destroy even the smartest of players.
Practice does indeed make perfect. The more expert you are, meaning the more experience you have, the more likely that your intuitive mind that makes decisions without thinking will be accurate. I met a CEO of a major company one day several years ago and I was struck at how normal the person seemed to be. I wont use names just in case she reads this blog one day! However, I was thinking in my mind – why did this company pay her millions of dollars a year? Quite literally her salary plus bonus structure was in the millions.
Why do companies pay people this much to run a company? They are just one person – what effect can they really have? In my attempt to answer this question one obvious answer was their influence. Perhaps overtime they have built up an influence and they can use that influence to grow the company, make better acquisitions, give the stock market (as if it was a person) a feeling of confidence about the company. I guess I could see that worth the money – sort of like signing a celebrity to an endorsement.
However, I came to another conclusion. The CEO of a major company is going to have to make important decisions. Many people are going to approach this person with decisions to make – and it is very important that this person makes the right decisions. Even decisions made on impulse or by instinct must be good ones. That is only possible with experience. Years of experience. This is why many large companies did not grow into lasting enterprises with their founder alone – it seemed to take a successor, one with experience to take the business to the next level.
Not sure where to take this thought. Clearly there is something going on as I focus on my goals and life priorities each day that I am starting to train my instinctual brain to make better decisions. Not sure I have scientifically proven The 365 Commitment yet, but clearly there are scientists out there considering the same sort of things.
Guy Reams (103)
365 Member
