Breakthroughs, Maintaining Humility, and Endless Progression

What’s more fun than learning the names and dynamics of the different cognitive biases is that they are finding new ones every year! That means not only are there roughly 180 named ways that humans act in scientifically illogical ways, we will know even more ways that we are completely misguided in the future. 

While most of the power in managing these biases is by naming them and, as a result, bringing awareness to them, it’s much easier said than done to free yourself from being subject to them. That’s true even when you know what they are! 

One that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is the Generalizing Expertise Bias.

This is when we falsely assume that knowledge or profound insight in one realm automatically means there’s lean transferability to other realms .

I see this extremely often in humans that have experienced a breakthrough in their lives. On one hand, there is legit, valuable insight they’ve gleaned from their life experience. On the other hand, because they’ve changed their life in one way, they assume they’ve mastered everything and have surprisingly low awareness of how they show up in other realms. 

I’m guilty of this and subject to the frameworks, sense making, and breakthroughs I’ve had in my life experience and education. Being able to write that sentence, likely means there’s a non-zero amount of awareness here. Nonetheless, I struggle. 

If you’ve had a life changing growth moment, like getting sober, overcoming debt, metabolizing trauma, or broken through a lifestyle disorder, look out for the ego inside you that wants to tell you that you’re the masterful monk here to teach the world. Instead, the humble learner in you that got you through that is still needing to be driving your bus. 

Keep going!