Mental Modeling

Jargon vs. Understanding

Humans seek to define emotions and articulate thoughts, yet a lack of understanding leads to fancy words and long-winded rhetoric. Sounding smart may protect our perceived knowledge, but as Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

To gauge levels of understanding, there are two questions to ask. First, can we deconstruct, expand, or compress what was said? Second, can we then describe the exact same idea in five different ways? If not, seek further insight to go beyond memorized jargon.

Genuine understanding leads to more transformative conversations. As you seek to translate emotions into thoughts and thoughts into words, here are quick constructs that signal a state of comprehension:

  • Actively listening with genuine interest
  • Using fewer but more effective vocabulary
  • Feeling untroubled by uncomfortable silence
  • Ongoing execution and creative adaptation

Brewed From Within
#35 📖 Leadership

By Ben McDougal, ago

Listen

Listening is louder than it sounds.

The more obsessed, the more vociferous we get. Idea machines must be willing to share compelling stories, but listening is part of any transmission. This is obvious, but with precious airtime up for grabs and knowing so much about our own interests, listening can devolve into feeling like a required distraction.

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Hearing is passive.
Listening is active.

As we guide people through the layers of understanding, active listening forms a bond much faster than forcing ourselves to be heard. The fear of not having time to deliver our message will linger, but when we truly tune into what another person is saying, it shows we care. Active listening also helps us better harmonize our thoughts within the moment and counters the common mistake of overloading others with too much numbing details all at once. Knowing each conversation is part of a broader relationship journey, good listeners are almost always given a chance to make a bigger impact.

Ready for an experiment? The next time you meet someone new, embrace your inner scientist. Set your introverted/extroverted mindset aside and focus your attention on asking as many thoughtful questions as you can. The less you talk, the better. This will feel awkward if you just fire question after question, so be concise with each response, then return to thoughtful questions for a more natural interaction. Consider expanding this social experiment by purposely doing this throughout an entire networking event. Remember who you talked with and track how the listening-focused conversations evolve. Over time, how do these relationships compare with others where you’ve been less intent on listening?

Here are tactics to support your listening practice:

  • Center your internal attention.
  • Stay engaged with eye contact.
  • Use jarring questions to dodge small talk.
  • Don’t interrupt or jump to conclusions.
  • Occasionally paraphrase what was said.
  • Avoid the urge to make it about you.
  • Ask curious questions to go deeper.
  • Use non-verbal cues to express attention.
  • Record and share a few key takeaways.
  • Exit gracefully, without a sense of rush.
  • Follow up with one more question.
  • Ask about progress next time you meet.

This type of active listening will not only extend your ability to hear. It will also make your responses more in-tune with what others are thinking versus always trying to prove your point. Selflessness may keep a conversation from landing exactly where we want in that moment, but as we move from one topic to the next, we learn how others work.

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Listening within a support network ignites optimism, connection, and motivation. A healthy balance involves listening to challenge networks, which keeps us intellectually humble and rooted in reality.

When done well, an unspoken bond is formed. This synchronization curates future conversations that are enforced by shared enthusiasm.

Brewed From Within
#34 📖 Leadership

By Ben McDougal, ago

Linchpin

We are often told that being extraordinary makes us special. We each write our own story in life, but as Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, perhaps the sameness of our cosmic composition is what makes each of us fundamentally special from beginning to end. This eliminates the need for permission and actually invites us all to be remarkable.

The factory, which can be thought of as any existing organization with established systems, relies on profit margins and replaceable cogs that follow instructions to keep the vast machine churning. The factory was designed to maximize productivity during the Industrial Age, but in our connected era, factories are fading. Gone are the days of clocking in on time and keeping your head down just long enough to climb a ladder built to resist change. The factory worker’s willingness to play it safe may extend a sense of security, but this choice makes you easy to replace with cheaper labor, faster tools, and advancing technology.

In 2010, Seth Godin gave those who choose to be indispensable a name: linchpins. Linchpins are artists who go beyond mediocre. Linchpins solve interesting problems and make judgement calls without a map. They welcome weird. They are scientists who stay curious. They are generous and passionate about the art of connection. Through an inclusive, positive-sum lens, linchpins lead and let others lead without seeking credit. They are fearless in that they are unafraid of things they don’t need to be afraid of. Linchpins leave resumes behind by curating a body of work that transcends time. They keep building at the speed of trust and relentlessly #GiveFirst, knowing that accelerating others generates unmatched energy.

Cogs in a machine are replaceable and therefore can be paid less. When you are a linchpin, you leverage your own superpowers and get rewarded for creative expressions that are rooted in lasting purpose. The skills of a linchpin are hard to quantify with traditional metrics, but a willingness to bring your true genius to work is an open invitation. Over time, the linchpin’s art becomes meaningful to many, which makes work less about trading time for money. This also brews a centered state of indispensability, where nobody can compete with being you.

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“Leaders don’t get a map

or a set of rules. Living life

without a map requires a

different attitude. It requires

you to be a linchpin.” –Seth Godin

If indispensability is accessible to anyone, why doesn’t everyone accept the invitation to be wonderfully weird?

One primal reason is the indoctrination of an education system that was designed to produce factory workers. From an early age, we are brainwashed to pursue perfection, to color within the lines, to follow instructions, to care what others think, and to define success by worldly consumption.

Fortunately, progressive teachers are activating modern students to go beyond the system. Instead of molding obedient factory workers who hope to be taken care of by factories built on promises of the past, we can teach people to take initiative. To honestly assess Playforce Principles. To invite doubt and to solve interesting problems while leading with reverse charisma and confident humility.

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What makes you indispensable?

Whether fueling innovative action as an intrapreneur, diversifying your career portfolio with an inventive side hustle, or building as an entrepreneur, we may only live once, and life is too short not to enjoy your work.

Brewed From Within
#38 📖 Leadership

By Ben McDougal, ago

Sequencing

When an audience feels informed, confidence increases and the opportunity for lasting collaboration is refined. Perhaps everything is an enumerated collection of objects in which repetition and order matters?

Understanding how everything connects is impossible for even the most methodical mind. Be it system thinking, design thinking, meta synthesis, neural networking, or whatever mindset you choose, the abstract intensity of complexity makes it hard to see how a few things relate, let alone immeasurable members in infinite streams.

Machines add computed awareness. But the squishy nature of each member within a sequence feels like it will remain a futile enigma, forever transforming based on if, who, what, when, where, why, and how something is being observed.

The processing power required to source the connection(s) of every moment would paralyze your thoughts. The mind is effective, thanks to sequenced memories and staying light enough to deduce answers with limited real-time input. This saves time, but it’s interesting how this type of internal sequencing actually quiets the depth of each sequence.

Enjoy the moment and be a serendipitist but keep tabs on where each member fits into a sequence.How sequences are pieced together keeps strategies in harmony. This brews appreciation from the past and adds a lightness for the moment. Delivering less information gives people only what they need when they need it. Added depth can then arrive down string to make a timelier impact.

Brewed From Within - Layers of Understanding

Layers of Understanding

As a sequenced narrative stretches, depth that rhymes will meet people where they’re at and more effectively guide the curious through new layers of understanding.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Anxiety

The mind is divine. It gives us superpowers, and the dots we electrochemically connect make us human. Such capacity allows us to achieve extraordinary things. At the same time, this mysterious grey matter can also hold us back and even cause havoc.

Anxiety is assuming failure in advance. As a mental cousin to fear, anticipation, worrying, and perhaps even desire, anxiety is like an unspoken agreement you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.This exhausting emotion is all in your head, yet the way anxiety affects your body is absolutely real.

For those who pursue greatness, the more we try to achieve, the tighter we wind the strings of life. When harnessed, this fuels strength, creativity, grit, and persistence. As the tension tightens, however, something is bound to break. Healthy habits and being mindful of your personal bandwidth reduces the frequency and severity of such breakdowns, but with the relentless pressure from never-ending progress, it seems impossible to completely avoid disquiet.

The most common way we attempt to manage such angst is to stop the pain by seeking reassurance. The nourishment of overthinking every scenario in an unknown future may satisfy the moment, but scratching this itch usually makes things worse. Even if we answer every possible question, the willingness to indulge the worry sets a precedent that keeps you coming back to what can become an endless loop.

An alternate approach is to acknowledge the suffering. Don’t run from it. Appreciate the relentless internal narrative you’re dealing with. Breathe. Be thankful for having something you care this much about. Find peace in knowing you’ve done your best to tip odds in your favor, but invite doubt and welcome an opportunity to be wrong. The anxiety is here and it’s dramatic, but it’s also normal. Let thoughts float by, focus your attention on what’s good, and allow time to heal the pain. Yes, this is like letting a forest fire burn without soothing it with water. It will get wild at first, but it eventually burns itself out. The scorched land is then ripe for renewal and less likely to burn again.

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Accepting that anxiety is inevitable

may be a secret to finding equanimity.

By acknowledging anxiety, clarifying awareness helps us understand, even appreciate, the energy. This breaks the cycle and reduces the frequency of such misery. Courage over fear also adds an eagerness to lean on support systems, confirms confidence in how the pain will pass, and allows the mind to stay centered with less climactic swings.

Brewed From Within
#96 📖 Life & Happiness

By Ben McDougal, ago