Chapter 1.1 Thinking Badly- or Not Thinking at All? Rationality is wasted if you don''t know when to use it. When you ask people about improving thinking, they typically point toward numerous tools designed to help people think more rationally. Bookstores are full of books that assume the problem is our ability to reason. They list the steps we should take and the tools we should use to exercise better judgment. If you know you should be thinking, these can be helpful. What I''ve learned from watching real people in action is that, just like the angry CEO, they''re often unaware circumstances are thinking for them. It''s as if we expect the inner voice in our head to say, "STOP! THIS IS A MOMENT WHEN YOU NEED TO THINK!" And because we don''t know we should be thinking, we cede control to our impulses.

In the space between stimulus and response, one of two things can happen. You can consciously pause and apply reason to the situation. Or you can cede control and execute a default behavior. The problem is, our default behavior often makes things worse. When someone slights us, we lash out with angry words. When someone cuts us off, we assume malice on their part. When things go slower than we want, we become frustrated and impatient. When someone is passive-aggressive, we take the bait and escalate.

In these moments of reaction, we don''t realize that our brains have been hijacked by our biology, and that the outcome will go against what we seek. We don''t realize that hoarding information to gain an advantage is hurting the team. We don''t realize we''re conforming to the group''s ideas when we should be thinking for ourselves. We don''t realize our emotions are making us react in ways that create problems downstream. So our first step in improving our outcomes is to train ourselves to identify the moments when judgment is called for in the first place, and pause to create space to think clearly. This training takes a lot of time and effort, because it involves counterbalancing our hardwired biological defaults evolved over many centuries. But mastery over the ordinary moments that make the future easier or harder is not only possible, it''s the critical ingredient to success and achieving your long-term goals. The High Cost of Losing Control Reacting without reasoning makes every situation worse.

Consider a common scenario that I''ve seen countless times. A coworker slights a project you''re leading in a meeting. Instinctively you hit back with a comment that undermines them or their work. You didn''t make a conscious choice to respond, you just did. Before you even know what''s happening, the damage is done. Not only does the relationship suffer but the meeting goes sideways. Too much energy is then consumed getting you back to where you were. The relationship needs to be repaired.

The derailed meeting needs to be rescheduled. You might need to talk to the other people in the meeting to clear the air. And even after all of this, you might still be worse off than you were before. Every witness and every person they talked to about what happened received an unconscious signal that eroded their trust in you. Rebuilding that trust takes months of consistent behavior. All the time and energy you spend fixing your unforced errors comes at the expense of moving toward the outcomes you want. There is a huge advantage in having more of your energy instead go toward achieving your goals instead of fixing your problems. The person who learns how to think clearly ultimately applies more of their overall effort toward the outcomes they want than the person who doesn''t.

You have little hope of thinking clearly, though, if you can''t manage your defaults. Biological Instincts There''s nothing stronger than biological instincts. They control us often without us even knowing. Failing to come to terms with them only makes you more susceptible to their influence. If you''re having trouble understanding why you sometimes react to situations in the worst possible way, the problem isn''t your mind. Your mind is doing exactly what biology programmed it to do: act quickly and efficiently in response to threats, without wasting valuable time thinking. If someone breaks into your house, you instinctively stand between them and your kids. If someone approaches you with a menacing expression, you tense up.

If you sense your job is at risk, you might unconsciously start hoarding information. Your animal brain believes you can''t be fired if you''re the only one who knows how to do your job. Biology, not your rational mind, told you what to do. When our unthinking reactions make situations worse, that little voice in our head starts to beat us up: "What were you thinking, you idiot?" The truth of the matter is, you weren''t thinking. You were reacting, exactly like the animal you are. Your mind wasn''t in charge. Your biology was. Our biological tendencies are hardwired within us.

Those tendencies often served our prehistoric ancestors well, but they tend to get in our way today. These timeless behaviors have been described and discussed by philosophers and scientists from Aristotle and the Stoics to Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Haidt. For instance, like all animals, we are naturally prone to defend our territory. We might not be defending a piece of terrain on the African savanna, but territory isn''t just physical, it''s also psychological. Our identity is part of our territory too. When someone criticizes our work, status, or how we see ourselves, we instinctively shut down or defend ourselves. When someone challenges our beliefs, we stop listening and go on the attack. No thoughts, just pure animal instinct.

We''re naturally wired to organize the world into a hierarchy. We do this to help make sense of the world, maintain our beliefs, and generally feel better. But when someone infringes on our place in the world and our understanding of how it works, we react without thinking. When someone cuts you off on the highway and road rage kicks in, that''s your unconscious mind saying, "Who are you to cut me off?" You''re reacting to a threat to your inherent sense of hierarchy. On the road we are all equals. We''re all supposed to play by the same rules. Cutting someone off violates those rules and implies higher status. Or consider when you get frustrated with your kids and end an argument with "Because I said so.

" (Or the office equivalent: "Because I''m the boss.") In these moments you''ve stopped thinking and regressed to your biological tendencies of reaffirming the hierarchy. We''re self-preserving. Most of us would never intentionally push someone else down to get where we want to go. The key word here is "intentionally," because intention involves thought. When we''re triggered and not thinking, our desire to protect ourselves first takes over. When layoffs loom at a company, otherwise decent people will quickly throw each other under the bus to keep a job. Sure, they wouldn''t consciously want to hurt their colleagues, but if it comes down to "them versus me," they will ensure they come out on top.

That''s biology. Our biological instincts provide an automatic response without conscious processing. After all, that''s what they''re for! Conscious processing takes both time and energy. Evolution favored stimulus-response shortcuts because they''re advantageous for the group: they enhance group fitness, group survival, and reproduction. As humans continued flourishing in groups, hierarchies developed, creating order out of chaos and giving us all a place. Territory is how we tried to avoid fighting others-you stay out of my territory, I''ll stay out of yours. And self-preservation means we choose survival over rules, norms, or customs. The problem occurs when you zoom in from the aggregate to the individual, from the eons of evolution to the present moment of decision.

In today''s world, basic survival is no longer in question. The very tendencies that once served us now often act as an anchor holding us in place, weakening our position, and making things harder than they need to be. Knowing Your Defaults While there are many such instincts, four stand out to me as the most prominent, the most distinctive, and the most dangerous. These behaviors represent something akin to our brain''s default or factory settings. They''re behavioral programs written into our DNA by natural selection that our brains will automatically execute when triggered unless we stop and take the time to think. They have many names, but for the purposes of this book, let''s call them the emotion default, the ego default, the social default, and the inertia default. Here''s how each essentially functions: 1. The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts.

2. The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy. 3. The social default: we tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group. &n.