Unveiling The Art Of Self-Awareness: A Deep Dive Into Your Inner World
00:00:04 Today is April 17th, 2025
00:03:45 Psychologist Tasha Eurich and colleagues conducted a massive study on self-awareness
00:05:43 Low internal SA, low external SA – SEEKERS
00:06:00 Low internal SA, high external SA – PLEASERS
00:06:18 High internal SA, low external SA – INTROSPECTORS
00:06:37 High internal SA, High external SA - AWARE
The Art of Self-Awareness: How to Dig Deep, Introspect, Discover Your Blind Spots, and Truly Know Thyself By: Patrick King
Hear it Here - https://adbl.co/3J5AJhH
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Q29TLNW
In this insightful episode, we explore the transformative power of self-awareness. Our host takes you on a journey through 'The Art of Self-Awareness' by Patrick King, uncovering the three crucial levels of self-understanding. From recognizing your actions to understanding your emotions and blind spots, this video delves into Kegan's theory of adult development. Join us as we discuss why looking within is essential for personal growth and how it can lead to a more fulfilling life. Get ready to embark on an inward expedition and discover the incredible rewards that await! Grab your copy of 'The Art of Self-Awareness' now at https://adbl.co/3J5AJhH"
Self-awareness is not just about knowing personal details; it's a deep exploration of what triggers happiness or sadness, and the core beliefs that shape these emotions. Most people seek solutions externally, but King asserts that true change begins within. It's time to uncover the hidden gems beneath the surface.
We will be covering an introduction and Chapter 1 of this thought-provoking book. The chapter delves into the three levels of self-awareness: what you do, feel, and are unaware of. This episode also explores Kegan’s theory of adult development, offering a comprehensive understanding of personal growth.
The book is available on Amazon, while the audiobook can be found on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible. For more insights, visit Patrick King's website at bitly - PKConsulting. Join us as we embark on this exciting exploration of self-discovery!
Transcript
Hello, listeners!
Speaker:Today is April 15th, 2025, and you're tuning into Voice Over Work, an audiobook sampler.
Our motto:Where do you listen?
Our motto:On this episode, we delve into the fascinating world of cognitive efficiency and creative thinking with Albert Rutherford's book 'Thinking in Algorithms'.
Our motto:This strategic thinking guide offers a unique perspective on problem-solving and decision-making, merging human creativity with computer analysis.
Our motto:Our daily lives are plagued by inefficient choices and solutions, often influenced by cognitive biases and emotional impulses.
Our motto:The result is an overwhelmed mind that struggles to think clearly, leading to procrastination and overthinking.
Our motto:Albert Rutherford provides a compelling solution: adopting the algorithmic mindset of computers to simplify our decision-making process while maintaining human creativity.
Our motto:Today we explore various topics including the reliability of gut feelings, our brains' efficiency modes, and how these concepts relate to relative advantage and absolute terms.
Our motto:We also discuss the Anchoring Effect or Imprinting, herd mentality, emotional bias, and the importance of exercise in cognitive function.
Our motto:The audiobook for 'Thinking in Algorithms' is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible, while the book itself can be purchased via Amazon.
Our motto:For more information about Albert Rutherford's work, visit NewtonMG.com.
Our motto:Join us as we explore these intriguing topics and discover how to combine computer analysis with human creativity for better problem-solving and decision-making!
Our motto:Humans are strange creatures.
Our motto:We often do things that don’t make sense, sometimes even to ourselves.
Our motto:What makes us more willing to purchase a product for $4.99 than for $5.00?
Our motto:Why do we get items for 50% off that we would never buy at full price?
Our motto:And what makes us so eager to use products celebrities use when we have nothing in common?
Our motto:Many of our decisions in life are seemingly random or based on whims.
Our motto:But even our most illogical actions are formulaic.
Our motto:As Dan Ariely says in his book Predictably Irrational, “these irrational behaviors of ours are neither random nor senseless.
Our motto:They are systematic, and since we repeat them again and again, predictable” (p. xx).
Our motto:Ariely is a psychology and behavioral economics professor at Duke University, a field of study that focuses on answering questions just like those we’ve posed.
Our motto:Researchers like Ariely have discovered the patterns behind our senseless habits by studying the effects of psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors on our economic decisions (Morgan, 2019).
Our motto:Behavioral economics not only teaches us about how our emotions, feelings, and biases affect our shopping but our entire lives.
Our motto:The Truth About Our Gut feeling
Our motto:28 00:02:29,040 --> 00:02:41,240 We often talk about our “gut feeling” as this visceral, spur-of-the-moment urge to go in a certain direction or make a particular choice—an impulse towards doing what we feel is right.
Our motto:Similarly, we might tell someone to “listen to their heart” as a way of following their passions and desires, using their emotions to do what’s best.
Our motto:Yet, we also tell people just as often to “use their head.”
Our motto:32 00:02:55,560 --> 00:03:03,440 We think of using logic and using emotion to make decisions as separate ideas when they go hand-in-hand.
Our motto:As behavioral economics and psychology have discovered, it’s next to impossible to decide without using our feelings and biases.
Our motto:Our heads often defer to our hearts to help make quick choices.
Our motto:Modern research and technology have looked into the brain and found it comprises a messy network of overlapping emotional and rational sections.
Our motto:Whether we like it or not, our rationality has been tainted by our feelings where the two are impossible to extricate.
Our motto:When comparing properties, making pros and cons lists may be the logical way of looking at things, but a feeling of home will usurp them every time.
Our motto:We may crunch the numbers to see if we can afford those new shoes we’ve been eyeing, but if we believe they’ll bring us enough happiness, our minds will be made up no matter what our calculations say.
Our motto:Even when we think we’re making a logical choice, emotional impulses will seize control of situations and steer us in illogical directions.
Our motto:Our “gut” often hot-wires our decisions and takes them on a joyride to buy things for a rush of dopamine despite our empty wallets or to go on a date with an attractive person we know isn’t good for us.
Our motto:When we leap to conclusions and grab for the nearest solution or craving, we’re not cutting out our brains completely.
Our motto:There’s no way to be that carefree.
Our motto:Instead, our minds recognize that they must find a quick solution and speed up the process of decision-making to the degree that we might not even be able to follow.
Our motto:This isn’t some miraculous hyper-speed thinking function but a simple process of shortcuts.
Our motto:We’ve developed these shortcuts, known as “heuristics,” as a survival mechanism that enables us to act more efficiently during a life-or-death situation.
Our motto:But, as we’ve evolved, it has become a less beneficial part of our everyday lives.
Our motto:Now we use quick thinking to make decisions about things that have no dire consequences or any consequences at all, like choosing whether we should get lettuce or spinach at the grocery store or picking out the next book we want to read from our shelf.
Our motto:Although heuristics speed up our thinking processes and work fine for inconsequential choices, they do so by creating corner-cutting habits that can be too simplistic for our own good.
Our motto:Our Brains in Efficiency Mode
Our motto:51 00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:51,240 The more our society has grown and flourished, the more we have available to us—more entertainment, relationships, connectivity, knowledge...and more options.
Our motto:In fact, we have too many options.
Our motto:From the time we get up to the moment we fall asleep, we ask ourselves to decide on almost every minute of the day (sometimes more).
Our motto:But, for the most part, we don’t notice these choices taking place.
Our motto:Our brains have gotten used to finding ways to function efficiently without interfering with the flow of our day.
Our motto:Like a server running in the background of a computer setup, our brains store, sort, process, and draw on information from previous experiences.
Our motto:This Rolodex of information allows our minds to be ready with conclusions to our questions before or quickly after they arise.
Our motto:This way, our day’s flow isn’t disturbed.
Our motto:Our brains are like great warehouses of information.
Our motto:And when the boss (us) asks for a file, it’s just too much work to run to the other end.
Our motto:Instead, the poor employee grabs for a nearer drawer.
Our motto:It might not have the exact or most correct answer the boss was looking for, but it’s satisfactory enough that the job is considered finished.
Our motto:Maybe it’s a B+ or a C+ type of answer, but it’s good enough, and the employee is let off the hook.
Our motto:Our brains don’t just do this to make us happy; they do it to save energy.
Our motto:We only have so much brain power to give to decision making every day, so we have to make sure that we save it for the important stuff.
Our motto:There’s no need to waste our fuel deciding what shoe goes on which foot or how to drive a car when we can put those actions on autopilot.
Our motto:If we gave our all to everything we had to choose in life, it would be like taking every possible road on how to work; we’d run out of gas long before we reached our destination.
Our motto:We think of many of these skills and habits as naturally occurring instincts that we’ve always had.
Our motto:But that’s not true.
Our motto:Once upon a time, we had to learn them.
Our motto:Some were intrinsic, like breathing, while others were difficult to discover and build, like riding a bike.
Our motto:But over time, they became second nature.
Our motto:We didn’t need to think about them anymore.
Our motto:These processes that allow us to do our routine activities run in the background of our brain so we can focus on other things.
Our motto:The more we can put skills on autopilot, the more complex ideas and complicated actions we can take on.
Our motto:When we save our energy on minor problems, we can put that extra fuel towards more important uses and questions, like figuring out the steps we need to take to further our career, deciding which relationships are worth holding onto or pondering our purpose and motivations in life.
Our motto:Usually, this ability to save energy serves us well.
Our motto:It enables us to go about our daily activities with little effort or strain.
Our motto:But sometimes, the habit simplifies decision making too much.
Our motto:It leads us to make choices that aren’t as logical as our brains might like us to believe.
Our motto:Thanks to the research of behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience, we've come to understand many biases and shortcuts our brains use to make these leaps.
Our motto:And the better we understand them, the better we can combat them and move beyond them to more complex and rational forms of thinking.
Our motto:Relative Advantage and Absolute Terms
Our motto:85 00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:29,560 When we make decisions, we often struggle to compare unlike or abstract things.
Our motto:Despite our irrational natures, our brains try their best to produce logical and critical thinking.
Our motto:They prefer concepts that can be nailed down, like comparing the cost of a $50 item to a $45 item or a score of 95% on a test versus a score of 86%.
Our motto:One is better (or cheaper) than the other.
Our motto:Their relativity to one another is clear and tangible.
Our motto:But choices in life are rarely so uncomplicated.
Our motto:Imagine you’re looking for a gift for your friend’s wedding.
Our motto:You find the perfect item at a store nearby for around $50.
Our motto:It’s more than you’d like to spend, but you decide that it’s worth it because it’s something you know they’ll love.
Our motto:Before you get in the car, you remember that a similar store is having a sale one town over.
Our motto:You check and see that the item is in stock for $35.
Our motto:Would you go to the further store or the nearer store?
Our motto:Chances are, you’d drive the few extra miles.
Our motto:The numerical values of $35 and $50 are easy to compare.
Our motto:One is cheaper than the other.
Our motto:But this considers only one variable: price.
Our motto:You haven’t factored in the time spent driving or the gas needed to get there.
Our motto:These elements make the decision too complicated.
Our motto:From an easily comparable sum, the problem turns into a three-part formula, some aspects of which are abstract in value, such as the worth of your time.
Our motto:We usually make choices about whether an item is “worth it” in one of two ways.
Our motto:When we see that a product has increased or decreased in value, such as by going on sale, and decide whether to buy it based on this, we are judging it based on “absolute terms.” We are comparing it only with itself.
Our motto:However, this method is flawed.
Our motto:We have no true assessment of its worth except for the happenstance of its cost when we first encountered it.
Our motto:The product's value may be its sale price, its original price, or something else altogether.
Our motto:But we can’t know that value for sure, so we base it off what information we have.
Our motto:However, more often, we use another form of reasoning.
Our motto:When we compare an item to like items, such as a name brand and store brand, we are assessing its “relative advantage” by comparing it to similar or substitute products.
Our motto:When we get suckered into buying a “new and improved” version of something, we decide that the higher-priced version of the same item is of higher quality.
Our motto:If we choose the cheap knockoff, we assess the product’s relative advantage in terms of cost and benefit.
Our motto:Although this suggests more data than absolute terms, it doesn’t tell us the product's true value.
Our motto:But it does give context.
Our motto:Our brain prefers and therefore seeks easier comparisons and calculations.
Our motto:We’re more likely to buy something for $4.99 than $5.00.
Our motto:We’re more ready to get something on sale.
Our motto:Numerical values make decisions easier to understand and explain.
Our motto:We can see the difference between two numbers, their relative value, and assess which one is ‘better’ based on our chosen comparison variable (i.e., price).
Our motto:Sometimes using relative advantage will help us to see what’s best in our spread of options.
Our motto:We won’t know whether the first car we test drive is the best until we test a few others and see how they compare.
Our motto:But sellers and marketers can also take advantage of the way we compare rather than calculate.
Our motto:Take, for instance, a showroom with three cars.
Our motto:The salesperson walks you through the display to see the three options, which are all mid-size vehicles fit your needs.
Our motto:One is listed at $30,000, another at $50,000, and the third at $80,000.
Our motto:Which do you go for?
Our motto:Most of the time, the buyer will go for the middle option.
Our motto:The lower option seems too cheap compared to the other two, but $80,000 seems like it’s too much to pay when you could get something similar for less.
Our motto:The salesperson knows this and will place a car they’re looking to sell with two other options of lesser and higher values on purpose to make it seem like the best deal based on relative advantage (Ariely, p. 3).
Our motto:Imprinting or the Anchoring Effect
Our motto:133 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:11,600 Another issue we have with our reasoning is the undue importance we place on prior experiences.
Our motto:Too often, when we believe we’re being logical and basing our choices on facts, we’re just using our memories and biases to conclude.
Our motto:Konrad Lorenz discovered this phenomenon while raising geese.
Our motto:When the goslings hatched, Lorenz realized that baby birds would attach themselves, or “imprint,” on the closest figure available if the duck mother was absent.
Our motto:But this wasn’t a temporary arrangement; it was an initial reaction that led to a permanent connection to the figure as a parent, no matter what it may be, Lorenz included.
Our motto:We create similar relationships to products, using our first impressions and experiences with objects to deem their worth.
Our motto:In behavioral economics terms, this is called “anchoring” (Ariely, p. 28).
Our motto:If you see an item for the first time at $500 and, the next time, see that it’s $400, you’ll think the newer price must be a good deal.
Our motto:It doesn’t matter whether the item’s actual worth is $1,000 or $40.
Our motto:This is also why you’ll hear older generations bemoaning the cost of gas and milk prices.
Our motto:As inflation caused prices to rise, their perception of the worth of a product stayed the same.
Our motto:If they grew up with gas being $1 a gallon, its price would always seem high when it’s over $1.
Our motto:One day, we’ll also be saying things like, “back in my day, iPhones cost $1,000” because it's how the technology was introduced to us.
Our motto:Herd Mentality
Our motto:148 00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:54,240 Society influences our decision making.
Our motto:Making choices because “everyone else is doing it” isn’t the most logical.
Our motto:But when we see something is popular, we want to hop on the trend.
Our motto:Over 20,000 five-star reviews can’t be wrong, and a long line of people can’t be waiting around for nothing, right?
Our motto:And besides, it’s much easier to go with the decision making of other people than it is to make choices for ourselves.
Our motto:This is called “herd mentality,” and it’s a troublesome phenomenon that has only become more difficult to avoid with social media and the internet.
Our motto:Herding behavior can have great importance with stocks but is also an incredibly interesting part of human nature... and monkey nature.
Our motto:Michael Platt, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, used cards with different shapes to study the decision making of monkeys.
Our motto:His team found that monkeys in the presence of other monkeys were more likely to choose the same option as the first monkey when presented with several cards than those who chose alone (Big Think, 2021).
Our motto:This is similar to the Asch conformity experiment of 1951, a test that asked participants to compare several lines to a target line and select the closest in length.
Our motto:However, the participants were placed in groups of people who were told to pick a particular wrong answer.
Our motto:The Asch experiment discovered that during several trials, the participants would become less sure of their own beliefs and start to choose the line everyone else was choosing (Mcleod, 2018).
Our motto:Platt found that herd mentality relates to the social network of our brains, that part of our mind that recognizes the importance of others, leading us to analyze and mimic the actions of others (Big Think, 2021).
Our motto:Conforming is a type of survival mechanism.
Our motto:Standing out is more dangerous than giving up our individuality and fitting in.
Our motto:We’re hardwired to avoid ostracization and prefer social acceptance.
Our motto:Our Emotional Mind
Our motto:166 00:18:03,080 --> 00:18:13,400 Whether it’s because of our emotions, past experiences, or other people’s influence on us, our logical thinking often goes astray.
Our motto:But we can’t blame our brains for being misled by our emotional impulses.
Our motto:It’s the way they’re wired to work.
Our motto:Our emotions are the most straightforward and most accessible part of our brains to latch onto with decision making.
Our motto:Emotions are the first line of defense when a question arises.
Our motto:To make the best decisions would require going deeper into our mental capacities and using our more critical facilities.
Our motto:It would mean putting in much effort.
Our motto:Emotional thinking comes to us naturally while rational decision making is learned.
Our motto:It requires intention and skill.
Our motto:Critical thinking only comes to us when we practice it repeatedly, making it a habit.
Our motto:Emotions aren’t the enemy, but they aren’t reliable when used alone.
Our motto:We can take back control of our seemingly irrational behaviors by improving our rational thinking and questioning our decisions.
Our motto:Do I think about this logically or through the lens of past experiences?
Our motto:Why am I doing this?
Our motto:And what factors are guiding my hand?
Our motto:To make sure that we’re taking both aspects of thinking into account and start making rational thinking the norm rather than the exception, we can produce and use formulas for thinking and decision making to replace those we have that rely on biases and shortcuts.
Our motto:Exercise
Our motto:184 00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:48,680 Take a day to reflect on your own decision making.
Our motto:Sit down and think about what choices you made on a given day, whether it was a decision to buy something, eat something, talk to someone, or some big life-altering choice.
Our motto:Then, think about these questions:
Our motto:188 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:08,160 Do you feel regret about the choice you made or wish you could do it over?
Our motto:What factors helped determine your choice, such as other people’s opinions, price, previous experiences, etc.?
Our motto:Now that you’re warmed up, think about some bigger decision making you’ve done in the past and answer the questions below, whether in your head or on a piece of paper:
Our motto:192 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:26,840 1.
Our motto:Take a moment to reflect on your own economic decision making by writing down your five biggest purchases in life and asking yourself these questions about each:
Our motto:195 00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:39,640 a.
Our motto:Do you think they were worth it?
Our motto:b.
Our motto:Did they bring you the desired result, whether it was happiness, change, forward movement, etc.?
Our motto:c. What factors helped determine your choice?
Our motto:Did you compare it to other options to assess its value?
Our motto:d. Would you still buy the item today were you to have the option?
Our motto:Why or why not?
Our motto:2.
Our motto:What are your five biggest regrets in life?
Our motto:a.
Our motto:Why do you regret those decisions?
Our motto:b.
Our motto:What made you make those decisions in the first place?
Our motto:c. Why did you believe they were a good idea?
Our motto:3.
Our motto:What are five traits you dislike about yourself (e.g., stubbornness, procrastination, etc.)?
Our motto:a.
Our motto:Why do you dislike these traits?
Our motto:Sure!
Our motto:Here's a possible script for the concluding segment:
Our motto:217 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:38,920 "And there you have it, another insightful episode of Voice Over Work coming to a close.
Our motto:Today we explored some fascinating insights from Albert Rutherford's book "Thinking in Algorithms," which emphasizes the importance of combining computer analysis with human creativity.
Our motto:We learned that rational decision-making is a skill that needs practice and intention, and that critical thinking becomes natural when it's consistently applied.
Our motto:Emotions are an integral part of who we are, but they shouldn't be our sole guide for decisions.
Our motto:By asking ourselves questions like "Am I being logical or relying on past experiences?"
Our motto:and "What factors are influencing my choices?
Our motto:", we can take charge of our thoughts and behaviors.
Our motto:To truly enhance our decision-making process, Rutherford suggests developing algorithms—formulas—for thinking and problem-solving that reduce the influence of cognitive biases and mental shortcuts.
Our motto:This way, we ensure that both emotional and rational aspects of our mind are considered in every choice we make.
Our motto:Remember, as human beings, we have an incredible capacity for learning and improvement.
Our motto:By adopting a growth mindset and continually challenging ourselves to think critically, we can achieve great things.
Our motto:So keep practicing your critical thinking skills, and don't forget to check out "Thinking in Algorithms" by Albert Rutherford, available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.
Our motto:You can also visit the author's website at NewtonMG.com for more information about this book and his other works.
Our motto:Until next time, continue seeking knowledge and keep those creative juices flowing!
Our motto:Here's a quote to inspire you: 'The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.'
Our motto:- Lao Tzu."
