
Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done (2012) [pdf] - bleigh0
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/presentation/1a59/7a9ca8b03d86ae9a2f86dd90e7bbff481fab.pdf
======
mariopt
I found the slide for "Cognitive behaviour model of depression" very
interesting, it's probably the best visualisation of depression taking over
someones mind leading to a paralysis where simple tasks become something else
and chaos emerges.

Ego does, sometimes, gets in the way of getting things done but without it we
wouldn't care to launch anything new/groundbreaking. Without our Ego as
creator, we would have no soul in my opinion.

Anyone who freelances, creates something alone, goes solo as a startup founder
etc. needs these "cognitive distortions"/"mental disorders", I see them as
necessary beliefs. The opposite would be someone who just blends into and
becomes yet another functional toothed wheel without any manifestation of
desires. A good portion of our society is like these, some people don't want
more and are happy/contented.

We need these self beliefs/"lies" to wake up on the next day and keep moving
forward. I guess this is a form of inner power/motivation without relying on
our environment and/or friends. As a solo freelancer, I do "suffer" from some
of these because at the end of day: this is what drives me forward.

~~~
1996
We need all that. Still, it can be frightening.

I have "launch fear": I delay by another week every week, because I found one
or more bugs the day before, which to me is unacceptable. Also it would crush
my ego if people said I hadn't noticed or bothered to fix it, because it would
mean I don't care about my users.

When I am launching, I want users to have the best experience possible. MVP is
minimal, not bug ridden. When I find a bug, it hurts, and it is almost
depressing - as in, leading to paralysis.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Wow - this.

I didn't quite realize that this was a thing.

I share the same tendency and it may have as much to do with something else:
the 'epoch' moment which implies change, i.e. a 'decision' or outcome which
could be bad.

'Development' is a grind, but at least you're alive. After launch it may go
well, but you could get wiped out - I think people may fear this.

Also, launch brings so much chaos, unclarity ... in 'development' you're in
charge of what's going on. After launch, your users and investors definitely
own your time.

~~~
1996
I think we all share the same concern. I am told to lauch by everybody (even
here) but I can't until I have at least fixed the MVP to fit my minimal
standards.

It is hard to explain but you've nailed it. In development, you are alive and
can fix things. I do not want things to go wrong for my users.

By myself, I have a lot of leeway. There are many things I can tolerate, and I
often strive for "good enough"

But I can't do that with future users involved, even if they don't exist yet.
Because they will trust me to deliver a good product, and I want to be worthy
of their trust.

------
ggm
Yes, I think there are at least five. So this is a list of at least five, but
not _the_ five I think.

Several of them feel like variations of the same theme: I know I'm right, so I
can disregard evidence|opinion|counter-argument because .. an axiom of the
system is I know I'm right.

If I had a sixth, it would be the tendency to latch onto a mantra. "think
different" doesn't really mean very much, but boy, successful people who get
stuff done like to say it.

(I'm not a person who gets stuff done btw. the mantra my get-stuff-done
colleagues say which feels apposite is: "do the shit work first" which kind of
makes sense: they don't procrastinate about things they'd rather not do)

Another one: seventh might be _they believe implicitly they are the smartest
person in the room_

~~~
scythe
>seventh might be they believe implicitly they are the smartest person in the
room

As a person with contrarian tendencies who has occasionally been accused of
"implicitly believing" I'm the smartest guy in the room, I think it's
important to recognize there's a difference between trusting your own
reasoning and thinking you're smarter than everybody else. You can mostly
avoid the latter by learning strategies that help you estimate the confidence
level you _should have_ in your beliefs. A couple of "am I wrong?" mnemonics
I've learned to apply include:

\- What kind of evidence are my ideas based on? Is it observation, hearsay,
case studies, or something more substantial?

\- How many silly/unrealistic counterexamples can I think of? Often these will
contain hints of a more complicated, realistic objection.

\- (if you have time to use the Web) Are there any professional researchers
whose conclusion resembles my argument? What can I learn from/about them?

\- Am I at risk of wishful thinking, availability/selection bias, or defending
a position I previously implicitly committed to? If so, try to apply the same
reasoning to a similar situation where the fallacy won't apply.

~~~
cam_l
What if you believe you are the smartest person in the room _because_ you are
the only one that questions their own ideas?

What then?!

~~~
ggm
Why are you even in the room dumb-ass!!

~~~
cam_l
..meta, and just enough so I am not _totally_ sure I got the joke, or that it
even was a joke.

There was also a serious side to my question though, that we all have flaws in
our reasoning, even in the reasoning we use to question our reasoning. Using
heuristics to judge, just never turns out right all the time.

~~~
Confusion
A piece of advice often given to people is "don't be the smartest person in
your team", because then you don't have anyone to learn from.

I think that advice is wrong, because:

1) there are many different skills you can improve and you are probably not
the most skilled one in the team in _all_ of them

2) even if you are the most skilled, it doesn't mean you can't learn from less
skilled people

3) 'smartest' is a strange criterion, because if there is one thing you can't
learn, it's becoming more intelligent

However, if you truly believe there isn't much you can learn in your current
work any more, possibly because of the skill levels of your teammates,
switching to a different job is probably a good idea.

------
jf-
By what measure do the people studied ‘get stuff done’? By virtue of being a
founder? Is this an attempt to shed light on productivity or a backhanded way
to compliment the Silicon Valley crowd? Generally you get things done by being
dedicated and having the ability to deliver, rather than having a distorted
vision of reality.

~~~
avip
All the people I know who are extremely productive (moms of 7, doctors,
athletes) share exactly zero of that SV narcissist list. This is really low-
quality content with a nonsensical title.

~~~
WillPostForFood
None of the doctors or athletes you are thinking of believe in personal
exceptionalism? That’s a pretty classic characteristic of doctors and
athletes.

------
wool_gather
Is the actual talk available? It seems like it would be interesting, but this
is mostly bullet points on slides; hard to glean any real information or know
what the author intends.

~~~
skmurphy
see [https://www.harrisonmetal.com/library/the-cognitive-
distorti...](https://www.harrisonmetal.com/library/the-cognitive-distortions-
of-founders)

------
rossdavidh
Hypothesis: the "people who get stuff done" are a subset of a larger group
with the same personality and talents, but without as much luck. Those other
people are known by unprintable names, because they have no great successes to
make people ignore the fact that they're jerks.

~~~
kebman
Examples of luck:

\- Being born into a good family.

\- Winning the lottery.

Luck: Something you cannot affect yourself. If luck is your only game, prepare
to be disappointed. Also: 70 percent of lottery winners, end up broke just a
few years later.

Question: Is having good luck actually bad luck? Or does it trigger bad
behaviours that rich people don't have? ... I think this well and truly
debunks any notion that luck's got anything to do with it.

In fact I think the opposite. I think luck's got nothing to to with it, and
that the only way you will keep your wealth, is to learn how to 1. increase it
fast, and 2. how to hold on to it.

As a matter of fact, most people live from hand to mouth. They aren't even
able to hold on to the little wealth they create. And thus so many of them
think they're slaves, when they are in fact free to do as they like.

Thing is, most people are terribly afraid of the freedom, and – as the example
with the lottery winners prove – most can't handle large sums of money anyway.

If you want an example of a guy who really learned about money before he got
rich, look up Elon Musk. One of the reasons he dared to risk everything, was
because he learned to live on much less than normal people would ever accept.
He knows his bare minimum.

Do you?

With that security securely at the bottom, he could risk the venture that
starting a new company from scratch is. In any case, luck's got nothing to do
with it.

~~~
dahart
> Also: 70 percent of lottery winners, end up broke just a few years later.

This often quoted line is a complete media distortion of what really happens.
It is wrong. I highly recommend being skeptical of the misinformation spread
by news and looking into the primary sources yourself.

Here’s the Florida study that this line is referring to:

[https://eml.berkeley.edu/~cle/laborlunch/hoekstra.pdf](https://eml.berkeley.edu/~cle/laborlunch/hoekstra.pdf)

Here’s the actual results of the study:

Results show that although recipients of $50,000 to $150,000 are 50 percent
less likely to file for bankruptcy in the two years after winning relative to
small winners, they are equally more likely to file three to five years
afterward.

First, this study wasn’t people winning millions and blowing it, it’s people
winning modest amounts under 200K. Second, they’re not going bankrupt at
higher rates than other people, they’re filing less often in the short term,
and at the same rates in the long term. In other words, the lottery winnings
of $10K - $200K didn’t help their longer term life prospects.

Is that some sort of surprise? Anyone would spend $200K in 5 years.

The winnings did not create higher rates of bankruptcy, and I don’t know right
now where the 70% number came from. The number of people who filed for
bankruptcy was 5.5%.

~~~
dahart
BTW, you don’t have to take my word for it:

“DENVER — Over the past couple of years several news organizations have
attributed a statistic to the National Endowment for Financial Education
(NEFE) stating that 70 percent of lottery winners end up bankrupt in just a
few years after receiving a large financial windfall. This statistic is not
backed by research from NEFE, nor can it be confirmed by the organization.
Frequent reporting—without validation from NEFE—has allowed this “stat” to
survive online in perpetuity.“

[https://www.nefe.org/Press-Room/News/Research-Statistic-
on-F...](https://www.nefe.org/Press-Room/News/Research-Statistic-on-Financial-
Windfalls-and-Bankruptcy)

------
Nasrudith
He calls it cognitive distortions but doesn't seem to offer any proof that
their perceptions are wrong. It is possible they were provided in the actual
content as opposed to the power-points to PDF. An anorexic convinced that they
are fat when they are 75 pounds and their body is falling apart from lack of
calories is a distortion. These paradigms don't seem to fit the definition.
There is always the possibility that these 'distortions' are in fact
objectively correct. The criticism of creative destruction in particular -
sure it may have costs but is not doing so any better? Thinking that
preserving the status quo at the cost of advancement is in itself a distortion
arguably.

Furthermore there is the question does it count as a distortion if they are
self-aware that these are all heuristics and adjusting accordingly?

Defining 'sanity' without reference to reality itself is ironically downright
insane. Like Pythagorians reacting so negatively to discovering irrational
numbers undeniably exist.

~~~
blablabla123
>The criticism of creative destruction in particular - sure

>it may have costs but is not doing so any better? Thinking

>that preserving the status quo at the cost of advancement is

>in itself a distortion arguably.

This creative destruction obviously only has to happen when something cannot
be changed. Then there's the question: why can't it be changed? In stiff
organizations this is well-known to be there virtually anywhere but of course
in startups as well.

My far-fetched theory is that teamwork is still something very rarely found.
So individual people always have their own space, be it a project,
microservice or some module. It's their baby, they've designed it, deployed
it, maintained it etc. If someone else needs to join the project, this person
always needs to ask the creator for permission of everything until the
creator's rules are followed 100%. Maybe I'm alone with this observation but
this has happened to me far too often. I wish these projects would rather
emerge of joint thought processes and also be evolved like that. Then there
would be no need of people having to go through walls, exposing border-line
anti-social behaviour...

~~~
vanderZwan
> _My far-fetched theory is that teamwork is still something very rarely
> found._

You could probably test this by looking at different work environments outside
of Silicon Valley or even the US.

Also, a few years ago I read a NYT opinion article citing research into what
teams perform best. It wasn't all that dependent on IQ, but on those where
where, everyone contributes more equally, people were better at reading each
other's emotional state, and which had more women[0][1]. It should be noted
that women are better on average at reading emotional states, and that being
better at reading each other's emotional state may play a big part in having
everyone contribute equally.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/why-
some-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/opinion/sunday/why-some-teams-
are-smarter-than-others.html?_r=0)

[1] [https://archive.fo/BM7BT](https://archive.fo/BM7BT)

~~~
blablabla123
Thanks for the references, the NYT article is really interesting.

Actually I recently had a discussion about the exact topic. At my current work
we have something like team work, the last time before I had that was years
ago in university where we could hand in together exercises in a group. That
was one woman, two men in the group. That was awesome, we truly developed the
understand and the solution together.

Another point though is that individuals (me for instance) have to learn to
work in teams (again). Having worked for years as 1-man-army, I had a hardy
time working effectively with other people.

------
make3
Very bold claims, and little data in the presentation. This is extremely soft

~~~
bleigh0
Fair, would be interesting to see the data. I stumbled across this because the
founder of an incubator in the UK called Entrepreneur First cited it as
something they used to think about applicants. (Their USP is they don't look
for teams or ideas but instead pure technical talent or people with domain
expertise).
[[https://youtu.be/RhE_0ZRBq4Q?t=2574](https://youtu.be/RhE_0ZRBq4Q?t=2574)]

------
madrox
I have mixed feelings about this. While I do feel this maps closely with my
own observations, this also generally describes the cognitive distortions of
young people. I wonder if the hidden correlation here is that SV is mostly led
by the young and not the old.

------
sonnyblarney
Is this 'get stuff done' or 'apparently started companies that did great
things'? I know the type described in the article, they would seem to be more
'driven founders' types.

So many people that 'get stuff done' in the 'work' sense are those who have
good focus, set priorities, and focus on outcomes. They often don't even stand
out.

Moreover, the 'I am special' is still arrogant, in a way.

Many of these people can have softer, beta type personalities, but the
actions, decisions and and outcomes are still those of an arrogant person.

I know loud, boorish and apparently 'arrogant' people who are at the end of
the day pushovers in the sense that they are actually nice guys, soft on
negotiation because they want a 'fair deal', loyal to people to a fault etc.,
they just have a brusque, apparently cynical outward demeanor.

I think this is a very interesting psychological framework with the wrong
wording in the title ... or rather, a much better definition of what they mean
by 'get stuff done'.

------
ggm
Some friends and I agree there is this "game" which is to own the meeting:
only be in a meeting, if you can own it. It sometimes plays out as hugely
destructive to the agenda somebody else had going into the meeting, but boy,
is it effective at getting (some) things done.

------
austincheney
Strange how many people believe this is a _self-description_ until they see it
in somebody else. Most people, despite their self-delusions, are not this and
are actually deeply offended when they do see it or blindly follow it, such as
the worship around Steve Jobs.

~~~
scarejunba
Haha true enough. I imagine everyone is like this to some degree. Otherwise
you'd never get anything done. But selecting some language framework over the
opposition of your peers and seeing it succeed is way different from removing
keyboards from a phone.

------
fzzzy
Under Personal Exceptionalism, it says “not to be confused with arrogance or
high self-esteem”; but how are they different?

~~~
austincheney
Personal exceptionalism is when everybody tells you how and wrong and stupid
you are and regardless you produce a superior product or convention. It
wouldn't happen if you actually listened to the idiots around you.

Arrogance is telling the people around you how they are idiots instead of
producing a superior product or convention.

Think about it in terms of your performance (output) instead of your opinions
(what you say).

~~~
fzzzy
Thanks. How does that apply to high self esteem? Someone who talks a lot about
how great they are projects high self esteem outward, while someone with an
internal attitude of personal exceptionalism just gets stuff done and doesn’t
brag about it? This is very interesting and subtle.

~~~
austincheney
You know you have a certain level of personal exceptionalism due to proof of
practice. In my personal experience I have formed the personal belief that
people are generally deeply fearful and offended by originality. There is a
minority segment of any population that is willing to embrace originality and
try the new thing (whatever it is). If that new thing is embraced by those
willing to give it a shot then (and only then) can it become a potentially
experimental idea by the rest of the population, a sort of social validation.

For the person working on that new thing this is deeply frustrating. The early
hostility is super depressing. You just have to power through it, because you
have the personal vision to know that new thing solves a problem in a certain
way.

Having gone through this more than once I have formed high personal
exceptionalism. Due to my technical experience I now have a pretty good idea
of what ideas are super great and what ideas are really bad, though from time
to time I am still (rarely) surprised at just how wrong I am.

The consequence of this is that I am really bad at marketing and self-
promotion. I would rather just work on my idea without telling anybody.
Because I have a small following of users to my big github project I know
people will end up using my code anyways. The biggest limitation in this
approach is that you are effectively removing yourself from external feedback.

------
firecall
Is there a presentation where these slides are presented at all?

~~~
skmurphy
See [https://www.harrisonmetal.com/library/the-cognitive-
distorti...](https://www.harrisonmetal.com/library/the-cognitive-distortions-
of-founders)

------
hyperpallium
Dichotomous thinking is discussed in terms of high standards, with the danger
of perfectionism.

But generally: reality is grey; actions are not.

If you see reality as it really is, it is harder to make decisions, and to
commit to them.

A quality of leadership is the ability to make decisions quickly. If they are
the right decisions, so much the better... (LN)

~~~
themodelplumber
You can change the resolution of the judgment process to better model the
grayness of life. You can also wield and employ multiple models,
intentionally, to gain a similar outcome. Actions that follow this modeling
and detecting can then be _refined actions_, which is to say that they
elegantly fit a higher-resolution model of reality.

A quality of leadership is refinement, which allows for decisions that e.g.
unite people of varying backgrounds through a higher-resolution process which,
while still dichotomous in some ways, is much smarter about it. In using
elegant models one's reaction time is shortened while also bringing to bear a
great deal of leverage.

------
drgoodvibe
Interesting how the cognitive behaviour model looks similar to the OODA Loop.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop).
Can general decision making be boiled down to a similar model?

------
caseymarquis
Cargo Cult Science:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science)

------
brooksbp
holy fuck. this is me.

.. and half the time i can't tell whether i'm kicking serious ass (rewarded)
or causing people trouble (fired)!

~~~
cmdrchris
Same here. I once had a boss tell me that he never had anyone that he reviewed
that had a larger range of good/bad feedback for/about. When I liked my
projects and was engaged in the work, I was kicking ass. Otherwise...causing
trouble. The solution that I've found is to try to always stay in roles where
I really feel engaged and useful.

------
montrose
Reading this, I was reminded of Hardy's _Mathematician 's Apology._ He
mentions several of these points.

------
MichaelMoser123
i didn't find the audio to this talk, is there?

I sense that there are some insights and good observations here, unfortunately
for me this is all wrapped in a lot of psychological jargon that i can't
penetrate.

------
internetman55
Wow I was going to call this stupid before I realized I have most of those

------
HillaryBriss
The Big Five

* Personal exceptionalism

* Dichotomous thinking

* Correct overgeneralization

* Blank canvas thinking

* Schumpeterianism (creative destruction)

i don't endorse the guy and didn't vote for him, but, um, this reminds me of
Trump.

i mean, how can we assess any person who actually succeeded at a goal that
thousands of others wanted but failed to achieve?

i don't know. how did this guy avoid losing? it's just so weird. i'm still
seeking good theories for his unexpected success...

~~~
noetic_techy
He didn't really. Hillary was just such a unpalatable candidate that she lost
the election. Look at the turnout data and you will see. Trump didn't do
anything special.

~~~
esturk
That's actually wrong to say Trump didn't do anything special. Trump had
almost 63 million votes which is more than Romney's almost 61 and McCain's
almost 60.

Hilary had 65.8 million which was almost exactly what Obama got in 2012, 65.9.
To say that Trump did nothing is the same narative that Bernie supports
started blaming Hilary supporters for losing. It's always the people that vote
at fault and not the people who didn't vote.

------
king_nothing
Attention, interest, decision, action. AIDA. And coffee is for closers.

~~~
jf-
Interest - are you interested? I know you are because it’s fuck or walk. You
close or you hit the bricks.

