A Smart Person’s Guide to Thinking
A guide on how logical thinking can help you make decisions that keep you out of hot water
Following a Thought to Its Logical Conclusion
I have a teacher. Since he wishes to remain anonymous, he will hereafter be referred to as Professor. Before I met Professor, I prided myself on being smart. I was a prolific reader, and I loved to learn. If you threw a piece of information at me, I’d gnaw it to the bone, happily squeeze out all its flavour, and spit it out again, cleverly reworded. No one could accuse me of not getting it. I also diagnose and treat speech and language disorders. I know how the human brain works and why we behave in specific ways. Yet, I was still consistently making bad decisions in my own life. Sometimes over little things, sometimes over big ones. It turns out that being smart is not just about thinking…it’s about thinking thoroughly.
Being smart is about following a thought to its logical conclusion…over and over again.
Groundbreaking? Probably not. We hear this almost daily in a plethora of Ted Talks and blog digests that smatter our inboxes: how to think, where to think, and when to think. And then, to complicate it even more, we categorize it further: how successful people think, how CEOs think, and how the most productive people think. Hint: these are all synonyms for the same thing. Strangely, despite all this information on thinking, our own thinking is still a muddle. Why is that? How do some people reliably make good decisions and avoid the pitfalls many of us fall into? And more importantly, why does it matter? But more on that later.
Below is the decision-making experience I have built over the last five years under the tutelage of Professor. It has made me a more disciplined thinker, increased my mental clarity, and allowed me to utilize my energy and resources in things that matter. It’s exciting to discover how much control you can have over your life when you learn to discipline the mind.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” — Confucious.
The definition of a smart person
So what defines a smart person? A smart person is someone with a functioning intellect. By “functioning,” I mean they use the intellect for its intended purpose. The purpose of your intellect is to derive information from the world and then use it to conclude some nugget of truth about the world. This truth allows you to act or withhold from acting. In other words, it enables you to make a sound decision on what to do next. When you arrive at a truth, you’ve followed the thought to its logical conclusion. If you stop the thinking process before reaching some truth, you’ve only completed half the process.
One of the perks of the modern world is the vast amount of information available to us. This is also one of its most significant downsides. We consume information, parrot it back, and utilize it in large quantities. However, we rarely challenge it. We don’t test it mentally to see if it’s true. We passively accept it, usually based on how it makes us feel or some perceived authority, without looking for blind spots. And that’s where the pitfalls come into play.
How you think about small things impacts how you live in a big way. If you’re not aware of blind spots, then you’re courting disaster.
Logical leaps
Logical thinking allows you to make leaps before you live through them. One of the first things I noticed about Professor was that he would often pause in the middle of a discussion and say: “Follow a thought to its logical conclusion.” At first, it took me by surprise, but I soon caught on along with the other students. If you wanted to share an opinion, you’d better have thought it through — not just the argument, but what you expose about your underlying self. Professor could make the leap to a person’s motives, beliefs and thought patterns from a single statement that came out of their mouths. At first, it seemed he was clairvoyant (or perhaps, worked for the FBI), but then a more plausible answer arose. He was just logical. He got to the end faster than everyone else did. Whenever a new student brashly said, “In my humble opinion…”, you knew faulty reasoning was at hand. Professor would say, with an amused gleam in his eye: “Go on, finish that thought”. We would sense a trap closing in on the unwitting student who had not yet arrived at the conclusion we all had and was about to contradict himself in some way. The only difference was he would live through it before he realized it.
Feelings & fallacies
The smart person follows a thought to its logical conclusion and this helps to pick up on blind spots. After I met Professor, I realized I did do this, but haphazardly, subconsciously, and usually when the thinking didn’t personally involve me. In other words, I was a part-time thinker. Like many of us, my thinking was often coloured by my self-image (a HUGE blind spot). It went something like this. I had a thought, but almost instantly, a feeling arose in response to that thought, and then a knee-jerk reaction occurred in the real world due to that feeling. It’s “knee jerk” because I’ve reacted this way so often that it now happens by reflex.
And that original fledgling thought? It got snuffed out somewhere back there by my feelings, and the only conclusion left is whether my feelings are now strong enough for me to act on them.
Did we arrive at any particular truth? No, we arrived at a feeling — a feeling that can easily change.
Feelings are not conclusive evidence. Repeat: Feelings are not conclusive evidence. They are unreliable as your primary guide to decisions. They do not hold up in court, and they certainly should not hold up in real life.
Am I saying we should dismiss all feelings, becoming stoic and unfeeling? AI wannabes? No. Rather, I’m saying that logical thinkers put things in their proper places. They find the facts underlying the feelings and use their feelings to finetune their decisions.
In much the same way that a multivitamin pill shouldn’t be your primary source of nutrition, but rather a supplement to top off all that other real food you ingested, feelings should not be your primary compass, but a supplement for all the other thinking you’ve already done based on evidence. Or, at least, that’s how it should be.
Ok, enough theory. Let’s dive into an example.
Decision-making on autopilot
An Example: Say you have a charming but needy coworker who’s constantly asking you to pick up the slack for them. It starts off as a small favour but soon escalates to a weekly thing. There’s always some “little thing” you can help out with. You help once, twice…thrice.
You sense the coworker is about to ask again and you no longer feel like a good citizen. In fact, a storm of resentment and annoyance is brewing and you’re conscious that you’re likely to snap at someone. You dread coming to work. You dread coming near this person. It leaves you speaking shortly with everyone and quickly hurrying away.
[If this kind of situation has happened to you before, then I want you to stop and take notice. Did you feel discomfort or tension reading about this scenario? Your body and mind may be remembering a past event and triggering the beginnings of past emotions. If this is happening, then just be aware of it. Your feelings may or may not be justified. However, being aware of them allows you to judge how much they impact your final decision.]
The above example is actually a very common scenario in many of our lives. You can sub in “boss,” “friend,” “sibling,” “partner,” or “child” for “coworker”. When push comes to shove, we tend to react with similar patterns across our relationships. You see, it’s the underlying thinking that sets the stage.
This scenario began with a desire to help someone else. At this point, you may ask, “Hey, Miri, is wanting to be a decent person a bad thing?” The answer is an emphatic, “No, dear anonymous reader”. But could logical thinking have helped here? Certainly.
We know how the situation began, but what are the deciding factors currently ruling it now? Initially, there’s dread, annoyance, and resentment, quickly escalating to other reactions, such as avoidance tactics (e.g. not picking up the phone/short answers/reduced eye contact) and perhaps impulsive behaviours to distract from the stress, like Netflix binging and overeating.
You soon need to relieve yourself of these uncomfortable feelings, and you sense that you’re quickly snowballing toward something. It’s unclear what that something is since you’re not entirely in control of your feelings now. It could go several ways: you may explode at the other person or you may choose to stonewall or cut them off completely or you may very well continue to reluctantly help them while dropping passive-aggressive hints. Having been there, I can tell you this is all unnecessary drama and the freedom of thinking logically would have left you happier and, well, freer.
In summary, this is the thinking process that took place above:
- Fact: A request for help was made.
- Thought process: I believe I’m a good person, and good people say yes. I also don’t like turning down people because there’s usually drama involved, and I hate drama. Besides, I think this will be a one-time thing, even though I haven’t checked. Whatever, I’ll deal with that later. For now, my gut feeling is to say yes, so I’m going to say yes.
2. Fact: I completed the task that required my help.
- Thought process: I’m feeling good about completing the task. My coworker/boss/friend/etc. praised me for my help. I’m feeling even better after receiving the praise. I think the job is done, except…now my help is required again…and wait, again, and again. I’m feeling annoyed. I don’t know how to get out of the situation without a confrontation. Dread fills me. I ignore said person and try to avoid contact. It doesn’t work. A confrontation is imminent, and I’m in full fight-or-flight mode.
“Drama starts where logic ends.”
— Ram Charan
Decision-making with eyes wide open
Could this scenario have replayed differently if we had thought it through? More importantly, was there another way to think about it?
The logical thinking process is similar to crossing a street. There is a reason why decision-making has been referred to as “arriving at a crossroads”. And, just like crossing the street, you follow almost the same rules for thinking:
- Pause before you step onto the street (or make a decision)
- Look right and make sure the way is clear (are there upsides to your decision, and are they sufficient to tip the scale one way?)
- Look left and make sure the way is clear (are there downsides to your decision, and are they negligent enough for the scale to tip the other way?)
- Proceed to cross with caution (if 2 & 3 pass the test, then make your decision but keep an eye out for changing circumstances)
- Stay within the crossroad (keep to the defined boundaries of your decision (a.k.a., don’t take on additional responsibilities beyond what you agreed))
One king to rule them all
Following thoughts to their logical conclusions allows you to make good decisions. And though it can seem like a project at the beginning, as you practice, you will begin to think logically at a rapid speed. Your intellect will function correctly and you won’t have to live in fight-or-flight mode for unnecessary situations. Of course, if you are faced with an actual lion, by all means, flee. But not everything in life should be a lion.
The intellect is king and the king has power – power to discriminate between truth and falsehood and power to make accurate judgments. Your mind is the most incredible tool that you possess. Hone it. Wield it. Don’t let it get rusty. Remember that, and you won’t constantly be surprised by the outcomes of your decisions.
An exercise to make you more conscious of patterns
Here’s a simple exercise to make you more aware of your thinking. For one week, take note of what happens whenever a choice presents itself. How do you choose? Are your decisions based on how good or bad a situation feels? Find the pattern.
Use this for any complicated choices that arise and also simple ones, like why you took a call or what you’re going to have for lunch. Remember you’re just observing. You don’t have to change anything. Just become more conscious of what’s influencing your day-to-day decisions.
Up next: pause before you pivot
In the next article, I’ll dive into the first step of decision-making, which I believe is the most important part of the process: Pause Before You Pivot. It’s important because it catches the biggest blind spot, your own self. We’ll talk about one of my favourite topics: what it means to be exclusive. See you on the other side!
