Josh Allred's Blog

When we don’t have enough information or context to a complex problem, we immediately jump to conclusions to get over the gap of knowledge we lack.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. How could you be an expert in every aspect of your life? I write more than most people but am a terrible mechanic. And while creating shortcuts in decision-making can aid us, it also hurts us by creating blind spots. It may be a good idea to walk fast in a dark alley when you see someone in a hood, but then again, are we just imagining a problem that doesn’t exist?

When we don’t fully understand how things work it creates tension. It challenges our authority and status. And instead of sitting with it, we look for ways to resolve it quickly. Even if we are just creating the appearance that we know better. Compounding the problem, we rely too much on our biases/prejudices to make these decisions.

We have a difficult time, especially in a position of power, saying, “I don’t know.” Yet, we have people right now on Capitol Hill making decisions for the masses who are uninformed, who are afraid, and who see the world differently than you do. It may be the best system we got, but it is also flawed.

No one is an expert in every category–even if we pretend we are. Your title doesn’t give you authority, only responsibility.

In mathematics, an imaginary number is a real number time the square root of the imaginary unit i.

The visualization is powerful. Human beings constantly apply their imagination to real-life situations. Think about all the possible problems we come up with in our heads and all the scenarios we play out.

The question we should stop and ask:

Is this a real problem or an imagined one?

Perhaps, we should be more patient and wait and see how things play out before worrying about them.

If we take the observer’s position, we will find that the worst-case scenarios rarely ever play out like we imagine.

The reason why Bernie Madoff fooled all those people wasn’t because the scheme was so bulletproof. It was the story he told to people who had money that they could have more of it.

This is why we continue to fall for the same traps because of the story we continue to tell ourselves.

Familiarity plays a key role here. Even if we know how certain jobs will play out, we take them. “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t,” we claim. We also say, “With my luck…” as if past performance is a key to future outcomes.

These are narrations. Not a fortune cookie of things to come.

Plans are important. However, the best plan is nothing without execution.

The trick then is to have enough to start.

There is way more power in action than in planning. Because once you are on the path, you can then make a plan for whether to go left or right. If you are still stuck in the planning stage, you are just making an educated with your eyes shut–just imagining the obstacles.

You will have a way better idea of what to do next after you take the first step.

12 plus years of school have ingrained in us to do the minimum amount of work to get an A. Don’t break the system. Fit in. That action repeated over again.

In the end, it trains us to ask, “Will this be on the test?”

The school system doesn’t instill experimenting, curiosity, and exploration. All those avenues have a higher chance of failure. Which, in turn, doesn’t fit the model of compliance, efficiency, and short-term gains.

Life is not finished with a letter grade, even though we act like it does.

The destination is the same for everyone, the question is how we get there–it is about the process not the letter at the end.

Over the years I have spoken to many parents in tears about the difficult situation their child is in. And I always remind them that there is another story to tell here. One about hope. We all need to be reminded, especially when we are struggling with tunnel vision, that the universe doesn’t go out of its way to play out the worst-case scenarios we have envisioned. Things are usually not as bad as we think they are. We are usually emotionally tired and need to step back to clearly see the road ahead and not just the speed bump we hit.

People feel powerful telling others what to do. Like the bad boss asking their staff to come in on a Saturday to work on TPS Reports. We do this because we feel in control. But we are not actually in control of anything. The Earth is spinning at about 1,000 miles per hour, how much power do we really have?

The answer to me is less than we think but more than we realize. The less in control we feel the more we pretend to exercise it.

We are very good at recognizing the road we take to work each day. Behaviors are much easier to identify since we see them.

However…

We are not so good at recognizing our own thought patterns. They can be hypnotic to the point where we daydream. “Wait did I just pass through a red light?” We don’t seem to have any control over them. (Don’t think of an elephant.) They are a force that is constant. So incessant that at times we have to just tune it out.

Thoughts are indeed random. One moment you are thinking about the task at hand and the next you are thinking about what is for dinner tonight. Unlike a city block that rarely changes, the landscape of our thoughts is always altering. When we learn we also evolve. We can recognize the behaviors of others and ourselves when we learn to see the world through a different lens.

Perhaps it is a foolish pursuit to find a pattern in something so spontaneous. Like most things, if we want to see where these thoughts take us we must first be mindful of what is happening.

The bottom line: thoughts are static. The noise in all our heads will often get in the way of the things we want to accomplish. We must recognize…

Everyone’s noise is different.

Chasing a digital number on a screen.

Market share.

Status.

Popularity.

Thumb’s ups.

Sponsorships.

A letter grade.

A number on a scale.

Title.

Most of these games we play because they are extremely easy to measure. When they go up, we usually are not satisfied because the number can always be “better.”

Numbers are a unit of measure to tell a story. Not a measure of happiness.

It feels oh-so industrial to quantify happiness into metrics that can be analyzed.

Most of us are following someone. Our parents, a boss or mentor, a hero, a celebrity, or the many others that have walked the path before us. Yet, we don’t even realize it because the path is so new to us.

The person you are following is likely following someone else and it may take you to places you don’t actually want to go.

Think about it.