The Melting Pot #5: Neuroscience, Negotiation, Finance, Psychology, and more

Here we are for another entry in the Melting Pot series. Grab your preferred beverage and without further ado let’s go through the new items!

Source: Pexels

Malcolm Knowles’ 6 principles of adult learning

Doctor Malcom Knowles’ has identified six principles for adult learning to produce positive results:

• Foundation: adults have far more experience than children, so we should leverage that to understand how existing knowledge can connect to the new learning materials
• Need to know: we want to know why we need to learn new information, more specifically, what role it plays in helping us achieve our goals
• Readiness: we want to know how the new information will be used and, especially, we want to put it to use as fast as possible
• Orientation: we tend to learn new things as part of problem solving so; often, day to day life will require learning new things rather than it being a deliberate learning process
• Self-concept: we need to be involved in the learning experience, it cannot be just a passive experience like watching a video or reading slides for the information to sink in any meaningful way
• Motivation: we need a concrete goal to push us to learn new things, be it a promotion at work, to complete a degree, or to stay in line with peers

References:

The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner

SQ3R

An acronym for reading comprehension and general learning. The method was first presented by Francis P. Robinson and goes as follows:

• Survey: can be done as a quick scan of the material to provide a top-level idea of what you will go through
• Question: prepare questions ahead of time that you expect to have answered by the end of the materials
• Read: as you read the materials, look for answers to your initial questions
• Recite: recall from memory what you just learned as if explaining it to another person — this should be done using your own words
• Review: at the end review the entire material to understand how close you are to answering your questions and if you need to go through the materials again

References:

The Only Skill that Matters: The Proven Methodology to Read Faster, Remember More, and Become a SuperLearner

Reactive devaluation

Beware of responding reactively to a situation or a comment from someone else. That kind of emotional outburst can easily diminish how other people perceive you — Jocko Willink calls it reactive devaluation.

A few things to keep in mind to avoid those negative reactions:

• Don’t immediately create emotional hedges: exagerated reactions put off other to how much they can push you, even if sometimes it’s playful teasing and you react too much
• Leave for room for openness and improvement: you can still have a candid, calibrated reaction that informs the other person you can’t react take it the way you want, but are working towards that goal
• Receptive to feedback: pay attention to feedback others have about you
• Wording changes how you are perceived: be careful with wording, never underestimate the power of words and how a slight word swap in a sentence can make or break a relationship

References:

Your boss thinks you don’t show enough passion in your leadership

Shift negative emotions with action

• Overthinking > write
• Uninspired > read
• Scared > take a risk
• Stuck > walk
• Tired > sleep
• Confused > ask
• Frustrated > move
• Burned out > take a day off
• Impatient > review progress
• Unmotivated > remember your “why”

References:

Substack post by Tim Denning

Lose weight without losing muscle

Dr Mike Israetel goes into full detail in the video linked on the references but the baseline principles are:

• Have a caloric daily caloric deficit — expend more calories than you consume
• Start resistance training

The body will want to take that caloric deficit from somewhere. If the food is not coming then it can consume muscle. If you need the muscle, then it will start consuming the fat deposits instead!

Our bodies are highly adaptable, which means if you’re training muscle, then it will know to not touch that muscle. The resistance training will be translated by the body as the muscle being needed for survival.

It sounds fantasy-like but that’s how evolution has slowly but steadily programmed our genetics.

References:

Dr. Mike Israetel’s Ground Rules for Losing Fat and Building Muscle at the SAME TIME