Don't trust yourself, test yourself
↩️UNFOLLOW University — February 17, 2023
Flying or falling? [📷 Jay Argame]
Happy Unfollow Friday!
This morning, I’m flying 550 miles per hour in a 150-ton aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean with 300 other passengers. I’m still not quite sure how flight really works.
Mankind’s earliest attempts at flight were significantly more entertaining and innovative than my 10-hour movie binge-fest.
Emulating the birds they could see, brave volunteers in 850 B.C. strapped wings made of feathers to their bodies in order to take flight.
Flap, flap, smack.
Gravity always prevailed, of course, and these grown men soon returned to the ground with a thud. Undeterred by failure, they got better and better at making wings more and more like birds.
Flap, flap, smack.
This continued for centuries, often resulting in severe injury or death. Then, in the 1700s, a mathematician discovered nature’s little secret: lift. Lift is the force that holds moving things in the air by opposing their weight.
It turns out we didn’t need more feathers or lighter wings. We needed to understand the invisible forces at work around us.
We were trying to be better birds when the answer to modern aviation was actually being better humans.
Think, think, fly.
🤯 Radical Truth
Don’t trust yourself, test yourself.
The moment we trust ourselves (our opinions, our facts, our “truth”) we cease to seek new information or possibilities.
Intuition is insight. Emotions are data. Feeling and thinking work together, not independently.
So what’s the alternative to going with your gut? Testing it. Delay the decision long enough to learn what you don’t know and see what you don’t see. Arm your intuition with the ammunition of other people’s truth.
Many of the most powerful forces are invisible. My fears, motivations, biases and background can either be lift (thrusting me upward) or drag (pushing me downward).
Flying is an exercise not in adding feathers, but in removing limitations.
⚡️Courageous Question
What skill is almost effortless for me? How could I apply it to a new problem this week?
🗣 Wonderful Words
“Man can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise.”
— Tommy Douglas
🙏🏽 Prayer Package
Lord, I know Jesus came from heaven to live with me and die for me so I can depend on him. When I’m overwhelmed by what I see around me, help me to remember that those who wait on you will soar - in your time. Turn my worry to wait, my hurry to hope and my stress to strength. Today, I will stop flapping and start trusting in you to lift me up. Amen.
🎵 Follow You by Christon Gray
🛠 Practical Tool
Adam Grants’ podcast episode with Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman is one of my favorites. He challenges us to find joy in being wrong and how to delay trusting our intuition at the beginning of a decision.
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See you next UNFOLLOW Friday!
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Every Friday I’ll send you 5 courageous ideas to help you redesign your work life by making better career decisions:
🤯 Radical Truth - A story from me
⚡️ Courageous Question - A challenge for you
🗣 Wonderful Words - A quote worth remembering
🙏🏽 Prayer Package - A moment of meditation
🛠 Practical Tool - An actionable resource
