May 29, 2025 • 58 mins
My episode with Chuck Clayton, Georgetown resident and author of Mastering Critical Thinking. Created for all serious individuals who want to learn and use practical critical thinking skills effectively in school, business, and everyday life. We discuss the book, his influences and practice a few examples of critical thinking. Find his book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Critical-Thinking-Learn-Think/dp/1732386978
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
A Leander.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's Andrew Naudine back in the studio here at Lantern
Media Studios for the latest episode of Lean in Leander
and with Me Today. Is a gentleman I met probably
it's probably been about a month, maybe month and a
half ago.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I can't remember where we When we met, we were
at the lunch it was a lunch and learn. I think, yeah,
I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Anyway, this is Chuck Clayton, not the Chuck Clayton, a
long standing character from Archie Comics. That's not him, but
he wrote a book. He's actually written several books, and
the one that caught my attention is called Mastering Critical Thinking.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So, Chuck, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I appreciate you coming in. I'm very excited about this one.
This is the one that I've been looking forward to.
So let's start with a little bit of a precursor, right,
help my audience understand, you know, like where you started.
I think you've written a couple of books on like
poker and stuff like that. So what was it that
got you to think, you know what, I need to
write a book about critical thinking?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
How did you get there?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
That's that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Back When I went to Peppidine University, I had a
professor named doctor Wayne Gertmanian. We used to do Germanian.
We used to call him lovingly doctor g Okay. And
during class he taught microeconomics. But during that class he
taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, spices it with religion, law and investing.
It was one of the most incredible class I've ever
(01:36):
had in my life.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That's an interesting mix of stuff. I'd call that a gumbo.
A gumbo class, all right.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I figured out I had twelve classes with professors like that.
There wasn't a job on the Europe that you.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Could right right, that's always nice.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
If you ever saw the movie with Kingsfield in a
paper Chase, oh yeah, yeah, he kind of reminded me
a little bit of that. I always hoped that someday
I would have a professor like that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I did.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
But during the class he would do certain things like,
for example, he would say, it would get to the
audience or a class of people and he would say
you can have an ounce of gold or an ounce
of goods and services, and people would gather up in
one side of the room or the other, depending upon
what they chose, and then he would ask the question
(02:20):
what are you going to do with the gold? And
the person will say, well, I'm going to buy goods
and services. No, you got the gold. And what he
was doing was making a point is some of the
richest societies are the ones that have goods and services
and are able to you know, human capital, things like that,
and so got you thinking. So that was my introduction
(02:41):
to critical thinking. In two thousand and seven I wrote
a book and sold a couple thousand copies, and it
was called.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
A Guide to the Lost Art of Critical.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Thinking and was It did well, but then it went away.
And then it was several years ago getting contacted by people,
especially being in the publishing and having several books published,
and people kept saying they wanted to republish it, which
I knew I wasn't going to do. And in fifteen
(03:13):
years or so, or a little more than that, I'd
grown a lot. So I started thinking about it, and
one thing led to another, and there's the book.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, so this is Is it fair to say
this is a reimagination of your original book on critical thinking?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Or is this just a more mature take on the
same subject.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I would say a more mature take. Dramatically, if someone
who didn't know me were to read the two books,
it's more like looking and not than I'm a kid
or anything. But somebody who wrote a book at like
twenty two and then fifteen to eighteen years later rates
another book. It is so much more in depth, it
(03:57):
has so much more studied. My tail off to try
to do justice and subject because practical critical thinking is
so important everybody's lives, all of us, and if we
use it properly, we can have a much better life.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Right right, So this book, if if I have my
information correct and I'm gonna I'm gonna use my notes, okay,
because I like to try to use critical thinking while
I'm having these podcasts. But since this is specifically on
the subject of critical thinking, I thought, okay, let's let's
break this down. So the book itself is structured for
(04:34):
main sections, okay, and those are the foundational critical thinking skills, correct, right,
Then you go into mastering critical thinking and then critical
thinking applications. And the one that I like the most,
I mean, the one that caught my attention was becoming
a new breed of critical thinker. Right, So I just
(04:56):
think I thought that was a very interesting way to
kind of introduce that, right, And admittedly I haven't read
the book and it's it's an entirety. I've read some
summaries of the book, right, but I haven't read it
in its entirety, which I'm hoping to do here, thank.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
You very much.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I was hoping that what I want to kind of
delve into as let's talk a little bit about like
the critical thinking itself, right, and then we might I'd
like to maybe kind of bring that around to where
we can take some real world examples of where you know,
you could you could take a subject and we can
(05:32):
come up with something, I'm sure, and and kind of
walk people through a process of critical thinking, like how
would you approach the subject if you're trying to think critically?
So I wanted to start here. You you you titled
the book Mastering Critical Thinking learn How to think, not
what to think, which I think is an important distinction, right,
(05:55):
So what inspired you to focus on this distinction between
how and what we think?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
There is so much misinformation in the news, in the politics,
and so much that's out there. How do you cut
through the chafe and figure out what the facts and data.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Are you know? Is global warming climate change? Is it real?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Is affirmative action a good thing? It's a space program?
Did it accomplish what it was set out to do?
When we start asking these questions. As a critical thinker,
we use certain things, but anybody can do critical thinking
if you have a willingness to do it. And the
first absolute positive thing that has to be done is
(06:46):
to have a curious and open mind. Sounds incredibly simple,
incredibly difficult for a lot of people. I've watched so
many people and they go, oh, yeah, I'm open and curious,
But then you give them facts and data that are
irrefutable and they still stick. I know, but it's like, right, okay,
(07:06):
so some people. If you truly have an open mind,
then you look at both sides, You weigh the facts,
you weigh the data, You understand things. And we're going
to get into this later, but you know, ways of
learning is reading from people who really understand how to
(07:28):
critically think.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Well.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
My favorite author has to be Thomas soul okay, and
I discovered him years ago when we had the riots.
A niece called me on the phone and said, what's
going on? And I gave a really lame answer, and
I was upset with myself and I went to my
office and in there there was a book called Basic
Economics by a guy named Thomas Soul. I still don't
(07:52):
know how it got in my office because it's a
five hundred page book.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I read it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I read it from to cover.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
But Thomas Soul and a lot of people have heard
about him, but he's written somewhere in the neb of
forty books. I've actually read over two dozen of his books.
But he talks about history, economics, culture, race relations, and more.
And I've learned so much. But he respects the reader's intelligence.
(08:24):
Or if you're watching him on video, and you can
find many videos, and I say, if you want to
learn about him, I don't even have to tell you
which video to go to. There's so many over the
last fifty years that you can go to and learn
from him. Patrick Bett Davis I heard recently, who's a
well known podcaster, came out and said he recommended everybody.
I thought this was interesting, is to spend forty hours
(08:47):
watching Thomas because a lot of people aren't going to
read the books. I've spent hundreds of hours reading the books.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But that's me.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I just the more I learned, the more I understood,
and the more I realized what was going on, why
it's going on, what can I do about it?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And so forth.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
And what I've done is partially is writing the book,
you know, to try to help people to be able
to think.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Through things with as much misinformation as out there. I
recently had an opportunity I was I was introduced to
forget the name of the individual, but they are the
cybersecurity guru, if you will, in the country of Taiwan, right,
(09:35):
and the country of Taiwan has taken a very very
different approach to social media and information available on social
media than what the United States has. It's actually, I
would say, and again this is my these are my words,
not theirs. But I would say almost the opposite, because
here in our environments and our social media environments, the
(09:59):
algorithm are attuned to amplify negative commentary that they're they're
they're intended to get your attention.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And the purveyors of social.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Media have found over time, obviously with this incredibly diverse
and large melting pot to be able to test things
on right, which is basically what they do. They do
a b testing in real time, is that they've found
that the positive reinforcement does not get them as much
attention as the negative reinforcement do. So the negative stories
(10:32):
or the negative connotation on stories tends to get people's
attention a little bit better. It has it's stickier, right,
and and it gets people like it'll it'll elicit the type.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Of reaction that they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They want that type of feedback because they want you
to be engaged in that particular area. Now, in Taiwan,
what they do, and this is shorthand I might be
misstating a little bit here, so don't fact check me
one hundred percent on this I want. What they do
is if they see something that they believe is in
error or or I won't I won't go as far
(11:06):
as saying malicious, but if they look at it and
they qualify it as misinformation. So in Taiwan, what they
do is they actually say, hey, this thing over here,
that's that this person is saying, it's misinformation, it's not correct.
They point it out and then they amplify that. So
by the time an individual who might be less engaged
(11:28):
gets to that particular piece of information, they've already heard
that it's not correct. They've heard prior to that that
now this is actually not factually correct, or this is misleading.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
At the very least.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Right, there's a little bit of that going now going
on now because there's like the community forum type approach
to social media and the United States, and I think
there's some positives to that, but again, the infrastructure, they
are so fractured that if you're not on a social
media that is is taking that type of approach, you're
(12:02):
just you're only going to be You're only going to
see what it is that they're amplifying. Right, So you
can look at it from the perspective of like X
now and how X manages commentary and feedback and comparative
to I don't know, Instagram or perhaps even blue Sky,
you know, those are all they're all subject to their
(12:22):
own environments, and unfortunately, I think the drawback there is
to become a little bit of an echo chamber, right,
you don't really get the full picture. And in order
for you, and I hate this because this is something
that I think is really counterproductive. In order for you
to get a full picture of what's going on, you
have to take in many, many, many sources, right, and
(12:48):
I think that's kind of what I took away from you,
is that instead of what to think, it was how
to think right?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I would say, you.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Know, hey, if you really want to be critical about
if you want to apply critical thinking now you age,
should probably take in multiple sources of information, right to
help you make some determinations on what is actually factual
and and to a degree true. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Truth is a perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
It depends on your you know where you're coming from,
and you know you're going to have a different flavor
of the truth, but the truth itself is always going
to be true, right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I think that's that's a fair way to say that.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So how did your years of experience, Like again, you
had written, You've written a book as a younger man
about critical thinking, and then now this stuff happens and
you learn and you get this wonderful mentor of sorts
and you rethink things right. I mean, isn't that in
itself an example of critical thinking?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I think so. I have found many mentors over time.
But that's one of the things is find the sources
that you know to be true that are consistent across
different areas. You know, when I tell a soul. Like
I said, this is a victor. Davis Hansen is another
(14:06):
one historian. I read an incredible book on him. I've
read a few books from him, and there's other people
too that over time, you know, you fact check them
and find out they're correct and over and over again,
so then they become a source, and then I start
trusting what they say rather than somebody else. Guy named
(14:27):
Mark Dice who's a popular if you want to call
a podcast read YouTuber. He has a book out called
The True Story of Fake News Relliant eye opening book
and shows these facts and the ones that I like
and the books, and Thomas sols is great at this
is there's all these notations at the back of the
(14:47):
book of where it is, so can go back and
research yourself. And I try to do the same thing
with my book. Is you can go back and look
at the source that I found. Now you can argue, yes,
but you've got this and that, and I've seen these
argued they can degenerate into something. But at some point
you have to make your own decisions on there. And
that's what that's what I really liked about. Thomas Olm
(15:09):
is his favorite book that I liked, which at first,
it's almost a little bit on the intellectual side, you know,
it's not as easy to read as as other ones.
But it's called a conflict of visions, and it inspired
me to write four chapters of my book called Conflicting Visions.
And he talks about that these visions have always been
there and what they what they mean for us.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So when when he's speaking of visions, I mean, is
that literally the is it the literal term itself, like
the visions that people have, or is he more using
that in the context of you know, when you're informing yourself,
you develop a vision of a particular subject.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
It's talking about groups. Okay, okay. The one is called the.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Unconstrained vision, and in the other ones of constrained vision,
think of the constrained vision. Like the United States, No
thing's perfect, but you have the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
the rule of law, separation of power, all these different
things from not just the legislature to the logical and
(16:22):
executive office, but the states, local and everything else, and
so you have all this checks and balances and things.
And the other vision is more if you put the
right people and the right systems in place, that things
will work out, and it leans towards centralized control. And
we found out of millennia how this works out. It
(16:46):
used to be the kings and things like that. Last
century it got into the socialist societies of Stalin and
Lenin and Stalin and Hitler and Paul pau and of
these other people, you know, where they tried to do
centralized control and everything, and we solve one hundred million
(17:07):
deaths last century. We live in a very unique time.
We're relatively very calm, right in comparison that when you
look back through history, it's incredibly violent.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I've said that several times to people in context of uh,
you know, intellectual conversation right where you know, if you
look at it post World War two, we yes, there
have been violent incidents, right, but comparatively historically much much
much less than what had ever occurred before. And you
(17:39):
can say that's a post atomic reality, right. The post
atomic reality is that there's a realization that and you
hope that it holds from an intellectual exercise, that there's
a realization that like, okay, we can we can destroy
ourselves if we're not careful. So it kind of keeps
us away from from that edge, right, and I mean
even today even to today's like today when we're recording
(18:02):
the podcast just last night, you know, in India retaliated
against Pakistan.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Whereas there were.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
There were rebels I think I should call them, probably
in the in the Kurdistan, I believe, is the area
near Pakistan that were responsible for some attacks on Indian
I think it was the city or I can't remember
exactly what the what the what the outline of that is,
but it was it was not necessarily Pakistanian attack on India.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
It was more of a group.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Or a sect within the Kurdistan or Pakistan area that
that attacked India. And but India retaled against Pakistan. And
now Pakistan said that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Is an act of war.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right, So now you're like, okay, both of you guys
are nuclear you have nuclear capacity?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Now what right? Like now what you have to try
to de escalate that and and and fortunately for us.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And and and at least in my lifetime, you know
that has been the case, Like we've we've been able.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
To de escalate to a degree on most, if.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Not well actually all of these conflicts because we've never
seen another nuclear hopefully never will, right.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I mean because things could change tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But oh, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
It's it's yeah, it's it's not like it couldn't get
worse than it was before.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right, it actually get much much worse than it was before.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
But it's been relatively good in the last you know,
half centuries, Yeah, the last half century. So so how
do you segue from possible nuclear war?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Like where do we go from? All right?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So yeah, no so but I but I really appreciate
you kind of helping like my audience like just kind
of walk there and that that that these are literal
examples of critical thinking. Right, We're just kind of going
through this process of where we're gonna all right, these
are the things, and it's and it is how to think.
It's not acessarily what to think. We don't need necessarily
(20:02):
need to And I think that this is where I
was going originally.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I remember my original thought.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
When you are exercised, when you're doing a critical exercise,
an exercise in critical thinking, when you're doing that, you
don't necessarily need to come up with an answer, right,
it's just going through the process.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
What's how you think about something, you know, human cause,
climate change?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I want to be careful.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But what I did was to study for ten or
twelve pages. I read a few different books on the
subject that I felt, you know, we're highly rated. I
had some good and on a couple of different ways
of looking at it and forth, and then reading articles
and getting data and resource and things like this, and
(20:45):
it opens your eyes to how you feel about it.
Do we need to take care of the planet? Of course,
but are we doing it in the right way? Is
a question, right, okay, And that's what my conclusion is.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Right, But it's just the question, right, It's not necessarily
an answer to the question.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
You're asking, are we doing it in the right ways?
And at least at.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That problem and I give suggestions, okay, but at that
point you're just prompting the reader and and don't let
me let me again, I haven't read the book and
its entirety, but I at that point I got the
impression that you're prompting the reader to make the next
take the next step. And yes, like just think about this, right,
think about this for a second. Right, you're not necessarily
giving them an answer.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Have you seen the TV series Land Man?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
It's been recommended to me by quite a few people,
and I have yet, I have yet to look at
them to watch them.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
That's Billy Billy, Bob Thornton, right, And I just watched
the first episode last night, but I've seen. One of
the things that I really enjoyed was one of them
where he's he's talking about the windmills, okay and yeah,
and he explains that all the energy putting into And
I actually have not from watching that TV series, but
(21:58):
I have in my book about the you know, the
wind turbines and everything else. And if you're going to
look at something as an engineer, see my background's engineering.
That's another thing that drove me to critical thinking because
I worked on satellites or in the ground support equipment
for the Space Shuttle. I've worked on computers. I've done
all sorts of different types of things. But you better
(22:18):
be a critical thinker, and you better be able to
listen with the facts and data and empirical evidence to understand.
But when you look at these wind turbines and things
like this, you ask the simple question, crater to grave,
what's it cost you build these incredible monolith type things?
They can cause harm to you know, the border population things.
(22:40):
That's just one thing, but how much oil does it
take to manufacture these things? How much oil does it
take to run it? How long are their useful lives?
How much energy are they generating over the twenty years
that they're good. Once you have to get rid of them,
and you know, you put them in landfills and things
like this.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Start asking those questions. That's what I do in the book.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
As I ask the questions, I'm not saying I totally
have the answer, but it's very questionable whether they're really
helping us.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And I'm glad you get that's a great segue because
that's part of people get the wrong impression. I think,
I think And I'm not gonna say all people that's
too much of a blanket statement, right, that's too blanket.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Of a statement.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
But I think there's a lot of people that when
you start discussing the idea of critical thinking, they take
almost they take it creates a posture of defense, like
a defensive posture, and a lot of people they'll get
kind of defensive about it. Well, what do you mean
critical thinking? Are you saying I'm not smart? Are you're
(23:45):
not saying that I'm not thinking things through? Right? And
and that can be that can be a little bit
difficult to overcome. So this is the segue you explore
decision making with imperfect information crook, right, you talk about that, right,
and so I want to kind of turn that and say, okay,
(24:05):
so if you're listening to this podcast or if you're watching,
how would someone doing that, you know, watching listening? How
do they apply that concept in you know, fast moving,
high stakes environments like business, you know, or decision making
in a political landscape. How do you do that? That's
(24:26):
a lot that you have to be able to. I
think if you're dealing with imperfect information, you should be
able to determine the imperfect part, right, Am I wrong?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
No, it's that's correct. I have a close friend of mine.
I just talked to him. He was and he suggested
that I put in human nature, which I do in
the book, because human nature has a big component of this, right,
I can come with the most perfect idea. For example,
let's talk about global you know, climate change, right right?
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
What are the lungs of the planet the forest right
right now? I'm an engineer, but I'm not crazy about
the ones that can strip down forest, you know, and
just cut out all the trees super fascinate everything else.
Why not work away so the forest don't cut down.
Maybe we paid somebody, you know, you could call it
ransom or whatever, but is that a smart on you know,
would that help us? Those are the lungs of the
(25:21):
you know, greenery is the lungs of our planet and
it has increased, but we can tear it down and
we can cause major products. Why not look at that, okays,
as a way of helping our environment. Another one is
fishing areas. You know, you get these incredible areas of fishing,
and if you take certain places and say you can't
(25:42):
fish in here, and make the punishment so severe that
they can't, but fish will proliferate and then they'll spawn off,
you know, come off, and they'll go into all these
other areas and then people can fish in those areas
and you can just generate this using nature in the
proper ways.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
And we're not doing that. And why is that?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Partially because it's not politically smart for a lot of people, right,
because keeping problems in place is the way politicians stay
in power.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
That's a big problem.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I would I would tend to agree with you.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I would tend to agree with, because you know, if
you remove yeah, now you're you're right, in my opinion,
you're correct.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I mean, if you if you do solve some of
the problems that are that.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Are generating the focus that that you have, or that
you're able to leverage for power or however.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You want to frame that, it's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I think it's an unfortunate reality of where we live
today because I think I would like to think that
at some point in time most of the decisions that
were being made were in somewhere or an other aimed.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
At resolving problems.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Right, But when you start to look at it, right,
when you start to look at it, I think you
find the opposite. I think you find the opposite that
that many times that the decisions that are being made
are are are falling, are stopping short of solving a
problem because the problem itself is something that is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Profitable.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You know, again, it can it can lead to, you know,
a continuation of a power situation.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yes, right, I mean.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Well, when you say profitable or profitable to who? For politicians,
where do they get their power? They get their power
from saying that they're going to be solving problems A
lot of times they're just proliferating and keeping the problem
going right. Thamas soul Has has one of his uh,
one of many profound things he has in there is
asked the question on any policy or procedure or program
(27:46):
or whatever compared to what at what cost? And what
are the hard facts? And if you start doing that,
you're going to find some really interesting things.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh yeah, No, I thought.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
The action was all about and then and then morphed
into something else.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
No, And and I think that's a that's a very
good point.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think that the intention And and many times when
I've had these kind of conversations, again, I always try
to go back to, like, well, what was your original intent,
Like what was it that you were trying to solve,
what was the problem that was presenting itself, and how
are you trying to solve it?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Now I've learned in the last five six.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Years about and and can understand it in a much
more tangible way. Is the the in the the baked
in bias that that that comes into play when when
problem solving, this is is is the intent.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
In this in the in the area that I work
my my my employment right one of the intents.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Is to ensure that.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The sales agents are following a specific pattern. Like I'm
in the telecom industry, so it's like it's a call flow, right,
you want your sales agents to do things in a
certain order and with certain direction and intent. Right, And
that's great, right, But there's a bias there that all
(29:24):
of the agents will be able to sell as well
as follow the call flow. It's a bias. It's built in, right, Right.
They think that, okay, hey, this call flow will gain.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Us more sales. And I've always argued no, because they
don't know how to sell.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They know how to follow a call flow, that's fine,
but you're not teaching them any kind of sales methodology here.
They're not really learning how to sell. They're learning how
to pairrot. They're learning how to follow a script. And
it's going to work a certain amount of the time. Right,
It's going to work just because numbers. Right, You're just
going to have certain people that are going to be
effective by that particular script and say, oh yeah, hey,
(30:02):
that sounds like the best thing. Let me go ahead
and take that from you, and boom, there's a sale.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
But that's you know, a broken clock is right twice
a day kind of thing. Right, So when you look
at that and you're trying to trying to figure out
you know, and you go into this in the book
as well. Is that I think you refer to it
as the importance of multiple intelligences and self awareness? Right,
(30:29):
So how is it that someone can start to identify
their own cognitive strengths?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Like how is it that I like to think?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
And maybe I'm wrong, I could be wrong, but I
like to think that I understand where my cognitive strengths
lie and what I understand innately. And then I try
to bring in subject matter experts such as yourself, to
have conversations to test that, like how much do I
really know? And how much more do I have to know?
You start with the premise of you know, I know,
(31:00):
I don't know what I don't know? Right, and then
you add the question help me understand? Right, That's how
I approach things.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
But that's me. But how do I help people other
than me?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
How do I help?
Speaker 2 (31:15):
How do we help people identify and leverage his own strength,
their own strengths for critical thinking?
Speaker 4 (31:20):
One of the major things that we as human beings,
and this is just about everybody. Okay, we don't want
to be wrong, right, Okay, So if we don't want
to be wrong, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
People see people go to their graves not to be wrong.
Once they've made.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
A decision, good or bad or ugly, they will find
a way of defending it. And this is a problem.
If you want to get over an o'n bias, check.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Your ego at the door. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
When I first on the first book I wrote, it
was I started in nineteen ninety five and I had
a class with a guy named Arthur Frederick guyed Arthur
Frederick Kay has written over four hundred books. That's nuts,
that's crazy, written over four hundred books. Most people haven't
read a fun books, right, And so I went to
(32:08):
the class and I was that one person where I
want to learn. So I had this great idea for
a book, and I start writing, and I write all
this stuff down and I'm so proud of myself that
I've written this, and I think it's the greatest thing
since slice spread Right, I give it to him and.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Came back with more red than black on it.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
And I had to make a decision, right, and I
decided I can either get upset and walk out of
here and indignant and not learning thing, or check my
ego at the door and start learning. And I chose
to start learning. And he taught me so much about writing.
(32:47):
At the point, I was a horrible writer. I'm a
pretty decent writer now. I've sold thousands of books. But
that's because I was able to do That is one
of the most important things I was able to do.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And if the.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
One thing that people can do to change is really
check yourself and going am I doing this because of
personal prejudices or am I doing it because it is
the right thing to go do it?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
It does.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I mean I think that's a simple way for people
to understand that is, like, you know, check it at
the door, right.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
In order to in order to achieve and maintain a
growth mentality, you have to, in my opinion, assume nothing, right.
I think I don't think I can assume anything. I
think you have to at least question it, right. You
can have your your thoughts, like I think this is correct,
(33:41):
or I've studied enough to feel comfortable that this particular
position is one that can be defended, right, but if
you really really want to be have a growth mentality,
you have to be able to put that aside for
a minute and say, Okay, let me.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Hear what your perspective is. Let me hear what you're.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Saying, and maybe that informs what it is that i'm
I think that's a.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Lot of times.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
It ref reinforces, reinforces what you believe.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Once in a while, and once as we grow and
as we mature, we get more set in our ways.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Everybody. It just is.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I think it's just neurology, right paras just the way
people's brains.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Were, and it should you Once you've been successful in
a certain way for a long time, you don't change that.
Why would you. That's when you get in a big trouble.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
So, but that being said, to be a constant learner,
to be a lifelong learner, you've got to go am
I still thinking about this logically and rationally and you know,
and not something that's inherent in me To have a
belief that's because I want to believe it and it's
and not because it's true.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So yeah, I recently was in a position that I
quoted George Bernard Shaw, Yes, and that the quote I
want women specifically because I wrote it down when I
quoted it, But it's something along the lines of, you
know you, let's see what at the end of it
(35:12):
is that the man who cannot change his mind cannot
progress at all. Right, there's no progress if you cannot
embrace change. Is essentially what he was saying, right, that
you have to be able to embrace change and understand
that again from my perspective, and again I'm just talking
about me when I say this, I'm like, it's about saying, Okay, well,
(35:34):
wait a second again, what don't I know about this?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Is there something I don't know here?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Like, help me understand what it is that I don't know,
and perhaps there's something there that will will persuade me.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Perhaps perhaps, But.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Typically it ends up, like you said, it ends up
reinforcing what you had already come to, Like I've already
come to this conclusion. I'm not being rooted in a
conclus to where I'm inflexible, but at least from that perspective, again,
you've informed yourself enough to where you can defend your
position and be open enough to understand that you could
potentially end up conceding a point and even in that defense.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Well, and that's the other thing too.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Is another thing that's very helpful that I've found is
don't throw the bb out with the bath water. And
what I mean by that is sometimes you find somebody
who you have a lot of respect for and they
have some great stuff or they even have horrible stuff,
but they.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Were right about something right, right, And.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
You can't say, well, they're wrong because they're this.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
You know, we've seen a lot of this with politics, right,
where people hate the person, but it's like, what about
their policies and procedures?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
What policies don't you like?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
And that's really the question, and that's a hard question
to ask. I've been working on myself on that, to
ask these questions instead of getting into the degenerative thing
when you start just insulting a person, right, instead of
but what about the policies of this individual that you
don't like?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
What don't you like? And watch a lot of times
people become silent.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Right, no, agreed, like agreed, And I think that there's
even I think I see it now and again this
is just me, but I see it now, And there
is this determinative process of avoiding policy discussions. Right, there's
this there can be a position where you know, whatever,
(37:35):
whatever position is, position X, I believe in precision X. Right,
And then if you ask the question, well, why do
you believe in position X?
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Like, what is it that makes that the correct position
to take?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And there's never really any substance behind those answers, right,
there's a lot of dancing around, there's a lot of
avoiding an answer, right, And I get it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I mean from a political perspective. Sometimes it's self preservation.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Sometimes it's just perhaps that particular individual is being asked
a question that they're.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Not fully informed on.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Many times, I think the politicians that we elect, once
they're an elected in elected position, they rely on a
lot of other people to inform them right about what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
And if they get.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Cornered and they're having to ask or answer a very
specific policy, they don't have the answer. It's not that
they're not familiar with the subject matter. They could very
well be familiar with the subject matter, but they don't
know the specifics of the policy, right.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Yes, And when you talk about when I see some
people and I've seen these interview the man on the
street type of thing, and they go up and this
person's pushing for something and then they're asked and they
don't have an answer. So then it begs the question
to me. And that was another thing the professor taught
me this doctor, I mean, and you know, begging the question. Okay,
so begs the question to me is like, why are
(38:59):
they out there or petitioning for something that they don't
believe in. There's some reason some of them may there's
an argument they're getting paid, Okay, fine, but there's another
argument too. Everybody wants to be part of something, right,
So they're out there with their friends thinking they're helping
(39:19):
when they don't even know what they're going up against.
That's scary to me. That's really scary.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I agree. I agree, and I find myself thinking that
quite often.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's one of the times that I will rail at
the television right, and I'm always I'm always like I've
been in situations where I've been at a rally or
I've been involved in something right where I was there
and actually experienced it. And most of the time for me,
it's exponential. I want to be there because I want
to see this, I want to take it in. You know,
this is maybe it's historic in some way or whatever, right,
(39:52):
whatever that might be. But there's a reason to be there,
and I know what my reason is, right, But they
never interview me, Like I'm never the person that they
and I'll be sitting at home and they ask someone,
I'm like, why are you asking that guy that?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I mean obvious, this guy doesn't know, right, no offense to.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Him or her or whoever they might be, But it's
like you're asking the wrong people the questions right, ask
the people who might have a genuine interest. And it
almost seems to me that from a media perspective, they
kind of avoid those people because it's a lot easier
to consume the guy who doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It's it's more entertaining to talk to the guy who
doesn't know.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Yes, And the news media, like you said, they're going
to focus on the bad. They're going to focus on
the things. They're going to get on the.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Most right, they're going to get the looks.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And that kind of brings you to my next question,
because I was I was looking at this and I
was like, you know, we talked a little bit about
social Actually I talked about social media. I guess that's fair,
but we talked about, you know, in your book you
talk about you know how independent critical thinking right, and
and with social media now, I mean, as I mentioned,
it's an overload. It's intentional. It is focused on continuing
(41:03):
to keep your attention wherever your attention is. The the
idea is to is to monopolize your attention, right, Where
are your eyes? Where your ears? What is that you're
looking at? What is it that you're you're you're reading,
uh watching? More than likely, it's what are you watching?
Why are you watching it?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
And how do I keep you here? Because I've monetize that,
I've monetized your attention. So with that, what do you
see as some of the threats to independent critical thinking?
And how do we combat that.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
In the modern age? You worms, all right, well, I
can wear the words.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
I think.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
The Real Story of Fake News by Mark Dice hits
some great topics and so forth. But there's a and
I talk about this in the book, and it's when
you first do the subject, it's you know, they're brainwashing,
and you think of brainwashing and somebody in a quiet
little dark room being, you know, with lights on all
(42:09):
this other stuff, and a lot of the media is brainwashing.
I'm seeing people that I know that I feel that
they're pretty darn intelligent. And when you get past the
first layer and try to question why they believe this,
they can't answer things. That's what's scary to me is
(42:30):
so people can't even they're not critically thinking. So I
think today there's a tremendous amount of brainwashing.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
I agree with them. Social media and it's engaging.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
It's it's tough when I start looking for something and
it's like, this is entertaining, this is entertaining, this is entertaining,
And I keep asking myself, am I being brainwashing on this?
And I try to go with the sources that I trust,
that I believe in, that are being as honest as possible,
and that are reflective of other things that I'm reading
(43:00):
from other areas and so forth, because over time you'll
find that things will be consistent from great resources. And
that's why I like books. I mean I love books
and giving an idea of growing up, I was exactly
the opposite. I was held back in second grade because
I couldn't read. I went to remedial reading. My mother
(43:23):
let me read comic books because I wouldn't read anything else.
When they sent me to Evelyn Wood's Reading Dynamics, I literally.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Went, well. I went to Henry Ford Community College.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
I went to Wayne County Community College to get through
English because as an engineer, I'm never going to need it.
I paid for that sin for many years and now
I'm a writer. But it gives me an insight that
a lot of people don't have. And that's it to
make it. When I write, it's to a really smart
fifteen year old. It's not insulting to anybody. And that's
(43:55):
how I write is because I want to. I don't
want it to be talking down to people. I don't
want to come across as I know all this stuff. Right,
Am I critical thinker?
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yes? But I could also say design.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
For yourself, right I don't.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
I don't have but for people to become a critical thinker, yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
That the media watch what's going on, and watch how
you're thinking and ask the questions of yourself, is this
impacting me?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
And how you know, on my.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Emotions getting involved in things and maybe sometimes just get
off of it for a few days or you know,
or a couple of weeks and things and see if
you feel better.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
And things like this, right, I would I would agree
with you there, and I think for me that's my
strategy because to your point, the the manipulation of the dopamine,
that that that is the dopamine hit that you get
with social media, right, that's it's it's it's a neurological
(44:58):
conditioning that is well understood by those who are are
you know, technology partners in the social media age.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
They understand that. There there's no question that they understand that.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So even to your point, again, I'm the same way,
like I will look for certain I do look for
the counter arguments, right, I do like because I know
where they are and they're easier to find.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right. Counter arguments are always easier to find.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
But when you when you found sources that are that
are consistent, and so you're you're, yeah, you're bouncing from
a couple of different you know, Uh, maybe it's a
different reporter or a different writer, or it's in a
different periodical.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Uh. And to your you said it earlier, if.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
The if the footnotes started matching, right, and you're able
to get those sources of citations and they start to
like line up, then you can feel a little bit
more comfortable about that particular perspective or that particular point like, okay, hey,
there's there's some for lack of better terms, there's some
science behind this.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Right, And you hear other people that are saying the
same things what I started getting off, and I got
a hoot if I'm tangent.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
But on books, what I find is you take a book.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
And a lot of times it's a thousand hours or
two thousand dollars and it's a lifetime experience. When you
look at some of the ones. Del Carnegie's book is
a muster read. It should be a muster read for everybody.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Friends of influence people, I would agree him.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
And old school is zig Ziggler, right, yeah, I think
Ziggler is a great read.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Oh he definitely, he's a He's an excellent read. And
also is who's think and grow rich. These books, some
of them took twenty, you know, twenty twenty five years
of experience and things and so to write. So you
could take this any book and read it and you
get the benefit of twenty or thirty years experience in
(46:49):
ten to fifteen to twenty hours. And when you think
the magnitude of that, you know, they one of the
quotes and I'm going to paraphrase it, but you know,
a person who never reads a book leads one life.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
A person who reads a thousand book can be a thousand.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I literally ran across that same like two weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I ran across and I haven't the book and I
can find out. I'm not going to go.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
But you know, for this book, I end up spending
like twenty six I'm around twenty six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Now that's everything.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
That's that's researching, that's reading books, that's doing whatever I
needed to do to get the information. You might read
a book and you know, pull off a few fantastic
paragraphs out of it that are that are profound and
things like this, And there's a lot of great, great
people through time that have rock solid information that you
(47:39):
can learn from and grow. So critical thinking anybody can
do it if they really want to do it. But
it's got to be You've got to be honest with yourself,
you know.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
So is it fair to say that that's what you
mean by a new read of critical thinker?
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Is that where you're going with that? I mean, how
do how do we?
Speaker 2 (48:00):
And it's not easy and I'm not asking you to
put a nice little bow on this, right.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I mean that's not the point.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
The point is like, when you're talking about a new
breed of critical thinking, what is it that you're saying
when you're when you're saying that, what is what is
the meaning behind that phrasing?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
If you will.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
I'm trying to remember when I wrote that, But it's basically, uh,
you know, is we have so much information today. It's
it's more of information overload than anything. And it's and
it's being able to select what is going to be
the most helpful for you and everything, but just systematically
(48:40):
going out there and I can give you the things.
That's why I wrote them.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
Ahead an open and curious mind is number one? Okay
that and like I say, that sounds so much simpler
than it is, Well yeah, or it really, it really does.
Getting a first class education I don't necessarily mean going
to school. You know, if you ever listened to El
Musk and I like him, that may be controversial, but
I don't care. I think he's done fantastic stuff becoming
(49:04):
an eternal student. And when I say education, whether you
educate yourself or educate your there get a great education
from good sources, you know, because today it's just it
can get insane.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
These people are in the debt one hundred.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
Two hundred three hundred thousand dollars for an education that
they can either get paid forty fifty thousand dollars in
their job.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
How long you you know you're paying off for the
rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I can attest to that.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
My daughter has got her hazard a doctorate in psychology,
which you know, kudos obviously, right, and she's a brilliant
young lady.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
But it's cost it's not cheap.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
Well, the next thing is finding your meaning purpose when people, everybody,
we all have to have a meeting and purpose and
it makes life a lot simpler. It helps you get
up in the morning and help you understand what you're
going to go do and things like this, and so
you you.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Know, we all have to.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Tom Hopkins had a statement to the most productive thing possible,
I've given more and again may be paraphrasing, but basically
sometimes rest is the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
There's there's all sorts of things like that become a
focus to reader. And as they say, I can't say
enough about that because you can put on an article
which may somebody may have taken four or five hours
on but you your book that somebody put, you know,
five hundred, one thousand or two thousand hours and things
like this, and there's there's so many good ones out
(50:30):
there that are just incredible and read from a wide
array of people. I've learned so much from so many
different people that helped me to understand when you hear
the arguments from one side or another, you go now,
because of this, this is what I believe, and it's
you know, you get a pretty solid base. Learn from
great educators. You know, I've been really blessed to have
(50:52):
some fantastic teachers. You know, Thomas soul Or, I've never
met him. I would love to shake his hand. He's
a fantastic teacher. Doctor Kirk Meanie and had other fantastic
teachers and you know, going through school and things like this,
and I was.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Lucky to have those things right.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
And I think everybody needs to search out those teachers
and have people help them. Our mentors and teachers and
people that you work with, Okay, become a student of history.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
History teachers are a lot.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
You know, when somebody goes, oh, everything's some terrible everything,
look back in history. Oh right, gosh, the carnage and
everything else that we as human beings have done to
each other is really not a good thing. And knowing
about it, and then knowing in the blessed time that
we live and it could all change tomorrow, I get it.
(51:42):
But you know, for now, we're living a pretty darn
good time and we need to appreciate that and appreciate,
you know, what that means, and the freedoms that we
have really understand whether it's freedoms come from don't let
me yourself talk about it. Everybody has to find that
for themselves. What does that really me? And then activities.
(52:03):
You know, personally, I play poker, and I'm not really
a gambler so much, but it's a critical thinking game
that or chess. It just happens to be poker because
you have to use both sides of the brain. I
love the mathematics, and that's how I got into writing
mathematics about poker, because it was fascinating to me being
an engineer. There's fifty two cards and the mathematics. I've
(52:24):
written two books and a workbook on it so far,
and I'm considering a third book. Bigger and I've read
like a few dozen books on it. It's just amazing.
For fifty two little cards game called Texas Nolan the Hole,
but it uses both sides of the brain and you're
making the constant decisions and imperfect information and trying to
calculate everything else. But chess is another game. But games
(52:47):
to you know, really stimulate the brain and get you going.
And then another thing is experienced different cultures. Now, if
you have the money, then you can go travel. I've
been very fortunate. I traveled well over forty countries and
things like this. But if you don't have that, you
can go down to these little enclaves of what they
called of certain cultures and experience through that. So it's
(53:08):
not like you have to have a ton of money
to go do this type of stuff. You can see things,
but opening your mind to different cultures, because the strongest
cultures take from each other. You know, the Chinese, you
know the water, the compass, all these other things.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
And then there was a.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Chinese head back in thirteen fourteen hundreds, because like I
think it was the eleven hundreds or so they were.
Europe was not up to where they were until the
eighteen hundreds. But there was an emperor that came in
and said they're not going to travel anymore in the sea,
and that just shut them down and so then they
you know, atrophied where Europe grew from there. So you know,
(53:49):
there's a little emperor whatever. You know, there's some really
bad things.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
The other thing too, I mean, I appreciate you saying that,
I mean, because I think that that helps people kind
of understand it's a more comprehensive overview of what we've kind.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Of hit on, you know, a little, a little.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You know, I've tried to kind of keep us on
a tract to where we've we've kind of maintained that
that critical thinking premise and introduced a couple of different ideas.
But the breakdown there is just, you know, to me,
almost second nature, like you name those.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Things right, and I'm like, I do that? Do that right?
Not everybody does.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
And I think that's probably more so what you're after
at the end of the day is it's like if
you take a minute and zoom out and look at
things with a little bit more of an open mind,
then critical thinking almost is a natural progression from there.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Is that fair, yes, and keeping your open mind.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
I mean, I love diversity, not the way the government
tries it, but meeting people from different cultures and different
ways of thinking and everything else, you learn so much.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, just open your mind to absolutely one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
And in my experience, one of the things that was
the most I would say it was probably it's a
very critical part of my growth mentality process.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
And and and study, if you will. Right, my son.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Plays soccer, and we lived in Houston, and so as
soon as he started playing at any particular level of
you know, competitive soccer, there were Afrikaners, there were Brits,
there were you know, kids from you know, all over
the world who were playing the same game. Right, And
(55:38):
so you meet those people, you meet those parents, you
start talking to me, have the conversations you find that
you know they're they they're Arsenal fans and you're a
Newcastle fan whatever, Right, And but it gets you talking
to other people and you get all these new experiences
that you might not have had otherwise. To your point
about being a world traveler, one of my best friends
(55:59):
is is a was an expat here in the US,
got his US citizenship, the whole nine yards, and they
side can go back to England. Right, So that's not
a big lead. But I went to go visit him
in England and I traveled to the north of England.
I went to Newcastle, and I saw Newcastle, and I
met people in Newcastle and went to four hundred year
old pubs and stuff like that. And that changes who
(56:21):
you are. It changes how you look at things. The
fact that we were even in the UK and you've
got to visit buildings that are older than our country.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
Because you hear all this stuff on the news or whatever.
Then you meet people and you sit down and have
a beer with them, right, and then you ask them
what do you think about this? And you really listen
to their answers and you find out won a lot
of the same things.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah, and yep. I think that's probably a good place
to kind of maybe end.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
It is that, you know, I think it's if critical
thinking as a as a practice at minimums should lead
to good conversations like this was agreed.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
All right, Well that's that's it for us here today.
We can probably go like for four hours. Honestly, we
could easily this. This would be an easy conversation.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
But I want to kind of wrap on that if
you are interested in I'm going to have a link
up on the site. It'll have this book as well
as the other writings. If you're a poker player, maybe
you want to read one of Chuck's poker books. But
I'll put this up there so you guys have access
to it. You can you can look into it further,
use your own critical thinking to examine the critical thinking
that that Chuck is talking about here.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
I just found it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I found it fascinating that there's a guy like this
in our neighborhood. I don't think you're specifically from Leander,
but he was at a Leander event and I'm like,
I've got to get this guy on the podcast. So, Chuck,
I appreciate your time. Thank you so very very much.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this. I have to much thank you.
And that's it for this episode. Guys, keep tuned. We're
going to have a few new things coming up here
(57:57):
in the next few weeks, and we're going to be
examining things Leander as well as things a little bit
outside of Leander. So Hi, thank you for your time,
and look forward to the next episode. And and I'm
going to read this book next. This one goes on
my bedside because I'll this will be the one I
read next. So thanks Chuck, I appreciate it. All right,
that's it for today, Thanks guys. Lean and Leander was
(58:23):
recorded at Lantern Media Studio, engineered by Morgan Tuttle, produced
and edited by Andrew Naude. Music provided by Ben Sound
A Leander.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's Andrew Naudine back in the studio here at Lantern
Media Studios for the latest episode of Lean in Leander
and with Me Today. Is a gentleman I met probably
it's probably been about a month, maybe month and a
half ago.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I can't remember where we When we met, we were
at the lunch it was a lunch and learn. I think, yeah,
I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Anyway, this is Chuck Clayton, not the Chuck Clayton, a
long standing character from Archie Comics. That's not him, but
he wrote a book. He's actually written several books, and
the one that caught my attention is called Mastering Critical Thinking.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
So, Chuck, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I appreciate you coming in. I'm very excited about this one.
This is the one that I've been looking forward to.
So let's start with a little bit of a precursor, right,
help my audience understand, you know, like where you started.
I think you've written a couple of books on like
poker and stuff like that. So what was it that
got you to think, you know what, I need to
write a book about critical thinking?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
How did you get there?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
That's that's a great question.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Back When I went to Peppidine University, I had a
professor named doctor Wayne Gertmanian. We used to do Germanian.
We used to call him lovingly doctor g Okay. And
during class he taught microeconomics. But during that class he
taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, spices it with religion, law and investing.
It was one of the most incredible class I've ever
(01:36):
had in my life.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
That's an interesting mix of stuff. I'd call that a gumbo.
A gumbo class, all right.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
I figured out I had twelve classes with professors like that.
There wasn't a job on the Europe that you.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Could right right, that's always nice.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
If you ever saw the movie with Kingsfield in a
paper Chase, oh yeah, yeah, he kind of reminded me
a little bit of that. I always hoped that someday
I would have a professor like that.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I did.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
But during the class he would do certain things like,
for example, he would say, it would get to the
audience or a class of people and he would say
you can have an ounce of gold or an ounce
of goods and services, and people would gather up in
one side of the room or the other, depending upon
what they chose, and then he would ask the question
(02:20):
what are you going to do with the gold? And
the person will say, well, I'm going to buy goods
and services. No, you got the gold. And what he
was doing was making a point is some of the
richest societies are the ones that have goods and services
and are able to you know, human capital, things like that,
and so got you thinking. So that was my introduction
(02:41):
to critical thinking. In two thousand and seven I wrote
a book and sold a couple thousand copies, and it
was called.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
A Guide to the Lost Art of Critical.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Thinking and was It did well, but then it went away.
And then it was several years ago getting contacted by people,
especially being in the publishing and having several books published,
and people kept saying they wanted to republish it, which
I knew I wasn't going to do. And in fifteen
(03:13):
years or so, or a little more than that, I'd
grown a lot. So I started thinking about it, and
one thing led to another, and there's the book.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, so this is Is it fair to say
this is a reimagination of your original book on critical thinking?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Or is this just a more mature take on the
same subject.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
I would say a more mature take. Dramatically, if someone
who didn't know me were to read the two books,
it's more like looking and not than I'm a kid
or anything. But somebody who wrote a book at like
twenty two and then fifteen to eighteen years later rates
another book. It is so much more in depth, it
(03:57):
has so much more studied. My tail off to try
to do justice and subject because practical critical thinking is
so important everybody's lives, all of us, and if we
use it properly, we can have a much better life.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Right right, So this book, if if I have my
information correct and I'm gonna I'm gonna use my notes, okay,
because I like to try to use critical thinking while
I'm having these podcasts. But since this is specifically on
the subject of critical thinking, I thought, okay, let's let's
break this down. So the book itself is structured for
(04:34):
main sections, okay, and those are the foundational critical thinking skills, correct, right,
Then you go into mastering critical thinking and then critical
thinking applications. And the one that I like the most,
I mean, the one that caught my attention was becoming
a new breed of critical thinker. Right, So I just
(04:56):
think I thought that was a very interesting way to
kind of introduce that, right, And admittedly I haven't read
the book and it's it's an entirety. I've read some
summaries of the book, right, but I haven't read it
in its entirety, which I'm hoping to do here, thank.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
You very much.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I was hoping that what I want to kind of
delve into as let's talk a little bit about like
the critical thinking itself, right, and then we might I'd
like to maybe kind of bring that around to where
we can take some real world examples of where you know,
you could you could take a subject and we can
(05:32):
come up with something, I'm sure, and and kind of
walk people through a process of critical thinking, like how
would you approach the subject if you're trying to think critically?
So I wanted to start here. You you you titled
the book Mastering Critical Thinking learn How to think, not
what to think, which I think is an important distinction, right,
(05:55):
So what inspired you to focus on this distinction between
how and what we think?
Speaker 4 (06:03):
There is so much misinformation in the news, in the politics,
and so much that's out there. How do you cut
through the chafe and figure out what the facts and data.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Are you know? Is global warming climate change? Is it real?
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Is affirmative action a good thing? It's a space program?
Did it accomplish what it was set out to do?
When we start asking these questions. As a critical thinker,
we use certain things, but anybody can do critical thinking
if you have a willingness to do it. And the
first absolute positive thing that has to be done is
(06:46):
to have a curious and open mind. Sounds incredibly simple,
incredibly difficult for a lot of people. I've watched so
many people and they go, oh, yeah, I'm open and curious,
But then you give them facts and data that are
irrefutable and they still stick. I know, but it's like, right, okay,
(07:06):
so some people. If you truly have an open mind,
then you look at both sides, You weigh the facts,
you weigh the data, You understand things. And we're going
to get into this later, but you know, ways of
learning is reading from people who really understand how to
(07:28):
critically think.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Well.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
My favorite author has to be Thomas soul okay, and
I discovered him years ago when we had the riots.
A niece called me on the phone and said, what's
going on? And I gave a really lame answer, and
I was upset with myself and I went to my
office and in there there was a book called Basic
Economics by a guy named Thomas Soul. I still don't
(07:52):
know how it got in my office because it's a
five hundred page book.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I read it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I read it from to cover.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
But Thomas Soul and a lot of people have heard
about him, but he's written somewhere in the neb of
forty books. I've actually read over two dozen of his books.
But he talks about history, economics, culture, race relations, and more.
And I've learned so much. But he respects the reader's intelligence.
(08:24):
Or if you're watching him on video, and you can
find many videos, and I say, if you want to
learn about him, I don't even have to tell you
which video to go to. There's so many over the
last fifty years that you can go to and learn
from him. Patrick Bett Davis I heard recently, who's a
well known podcaster, came out and said he recommended everybody.
I thought this was interesting, is to spend forty hours
(08:47):
watching Thomas because a lot of people aren't going to
read the books. I've spent hundreds of hours reading the books.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
But that's me.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
I just the more I learned, the more I understood,
and the more I realized what was going on, why
it's going on, what can I do about it?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And so forth.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
And what I've done is partially is writing the book,
you know, to try to help people to be able
to think.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Through things with as much misinformation as out there. I
recently had an opportunity I was I was introduced to
forget the name of the individual, but they are the
cybersecurity guru, if you will, in the country of Taiwan, right,
(09:35):
and the country of Taiwan has taken a very very
different approach to social media and information available on social
media than what the United States has. It's actually, I
would say, and again this is my these are my words,
not theirs. But I would say almost the opposite, because
here in our environments and our social media environments, the
(09:59):
algorithm are attuned to amplify negative commentary that they're they're
they're intended to get your attention.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And the purveyors of social.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Media have found over time, obviously with this incredibly diverse
and large melting pot to be able to test things
on right, which is basically what they do. They do
a b testing in real time, is that they've found
that the positive reinforcement does not get them as much
attention as the negative reinforcement do. So the negative stories
(10:32):
or the negative connotation on stories tends to get people's
attention a little bit better. It has it's stickier, right,
and and it gets people like it'll it'll elicit the type.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Of reaction that they're looking for.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
They want that type of feedback because they want you
to be engaged in that particular area. Now, in Taiwan,
what they do, and this is shorthand I might be
misstating a little bit here, so don't fact check me
one hundred percent on this I want. What they do
is if they see something that they believe is in
error or or I won't I won't go as far
(11:06):
as saying malicious, but if they look at it and
they qualify it as misinformation. So in Taiwan, what they
do is they actually say, hey, this thing over here,
that's that this person is saying, it's misinformation, it's not correct.
They point it out and then they amplify that. So
by the time an individual who might be less engaged
(11:28):
gets to that particular piece of information, they've already heard
that it's not correct. They've heard prior to that that
now this is actually not factually correct, or this is misleading.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
At the very least.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Right, there's a little bit of that going now going
on now because there's like the community forum type approach
to social media and the United States, and I think
there's some positives to that, but again, the infrastructure, they
are so fractured that if you're not on a social
media that is is taking that type of approach, you're
(12:02):
just you're only going to be You're only going to
see what it is that they're amplifying. Right, So you
can look at it from the perspective of like X
now and how X manages commentary and feedback and comparative
to I don't know, Instagram or perhaps even blue Sky,
you know, those are all they're all subject to their
(12:22):
own environments, and unfortunately, I think the drawback there is
to become a little bit of an echo chamber, right,
you don't really get the full picture. And in order
for you, and I hate this because this is something
that I think is really counterproductive. In order for you
to get a full picture of what's going on, you
have to take in many, many, many sources, right, and
(12:48):
I think that's kind of what I took away from you,
is that instead of what to think, it was how
to think right?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
And I would say, you.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Know, hey, if you really want to be critical about
if you want to apply critical thinking now you age,
should probably take in multiple sources of information, right to
help you make some determinations on what is actually factual
and and to a degree true. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Truth is a perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
It depends on your you know where you're coming from,
and you know you're going to have a different flavor
of the truth, but the truth itself is always going
to be true, right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
I think that's that's a fair way to say that.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So how did your years of experience, Like again, you
had written, You've written a book as a younger man
about critical thinking, and then now this stuff happens and
you learn and you get this wonderful mentor of sorts
and you rethink things right. I mean, isn't that in
itself an example of critical thinking?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I think so. I have found many mentors over time.
But that's one of the things is find the sources
that you know to be true that are consistent across
different areas. You know, when I tell a soul. Like
I said, this is a victor. Davis Hansen is another
(14:06):
one historian. I read an incredible book on him. I've
read a few books from him, and there's other people
too that over time, you know, you fact check them
and find out they're correct and over and over again,
so then they become a source, and then I start
trusting what they say rather than somebody else. Guy named
(14:27):
Mark Dice who's a popular if you want to call
a podcast read YouTuber. He has a book out called
The True Story of Fake News Relliant eye opening book
and shows these facts and the ones that I like
and the books, and Thomas sols is great at this
is there's all these notations at the back of the
(14:47):
book of where it is, so can go back and
research yourself. And I try to do the same thing
with my book. Is you can go back and look
at the source that I found. Now you can argue, yes,
but you've got this and that, and I've seen these
argued they can degenerate into something. But at some point
you have to make your own decisions on there. And
that's what that's what I really liked about. Thomas Olm
(15:09):
is his favorite book that I liked, which at first,
it's almost a little bit on the intellectual side, you know,
it's not as easy to read as as other ones.
But it's called a conflict of visions, and it inspired
me to write four chapters of my book called Conflicting Visions.
And he talks about that these visions have always been
there and what they what they mean for us.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
So when when he's speaking of visions, I mean, is
that literally the is it the literal term itself, like
the visions that people have, or is he more using
that in the context of you know, when you're informing yourself,
you develop a vision of a particular subject.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
It's talking about groups. Okay, okay. The one is called the.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Unconstrained vision, and in the other ones of constrained vision,
think of the constrained vision. Like the United States, No
thing's perfect, but you have the Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
the rule of law, separation of power, all these different
things from not just the legislature to the logical and
(16:22):
executive office, but the states, local and everything else, and
so you have all this checks and balances and things.
And the other vision is more if you put the
right people and the right systems in place, that things
will work out, and it leans towards centralized control. And
we found out of millennia how this works out. It
(16:46):
used to be the kings and things like that. Last
century it got into the socialist societies of Stalin and
Lenin and Stalin and Hitler and Paul pau and of
these other people, you know, where they tried to do
centralized control and everything, and we solve one hundred million
(17:07):
deaths last century. We live in a very unique time.
We're relatively very calm, right in comparison that when you
look back through history, it's incredibly violent.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I've said that several times to people in context of uh,
you know, intellectual conversation right where you know, if you
look at it post World War two, we yes, there
have been violent incidents, right, but comparatively historically much much
much less than what had ever occurred before. And you
(17:39):
can say that's a post atomic reality, right. The post
atomic reality is that there's a realization that and you
hope that it holds from an intellectual exercise, that there's
a realization that like, okay, we can we can destroy
ourselves if we're not careful. So it kind of keeps
us away from from that edge, right, and I mean
even today even to today's like today when we're recording
(18:02):
the podcast just last night, you know, in India retaliated
against Pakistan.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Whereas there were.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
There were rebels I think I should call them, probably
in the in the Kurdistan, I believe, is the area
near Pakistan that were responsible for some attacks on Indian
I think it was the city or I can't remember
exactly what the what the what the outline of that is,
but it was it was not necessarily Pakistanian attack on India.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
It was more of a group.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Or a sect within the Kurdistan or Pakistan area that
that attacked India. And but India retaled against Pakistan. And
now Pakistan said that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Is an act of war.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Right, So now you're like, okay, both of you guys
are nuclear you have nuclear capacity?
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Now what right? Like now what you have to try
to de escalate that and and and fortunately for us.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
And and and at least in my lifetime, you know
that has been the case, Like we've we've been able.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
To de escalate to a degree on most, if.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Not well actually all of these conflicts because we've never
seen another nuclear hopefully never will, right.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
I mean because things could change tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But oh, yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
It's it's yeah, it's it's not like it couldn't get
worse than it was before.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right, it actually get much much worse than it was before.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
But it's been relatively good in the last you know,
half centuries, Yeah, the last half century. So so how
do you segue from possible nuclear war?
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Like where do we go from? All right?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
So yeah, no so but I but I really appreciate
you kind of helping like my audience like just kind
of walk there and that that that these are literal
examples of critical thinking. Right, We're just kind of going
through this process of where we're gonna all right, these
are the things, and it's and it is how to think.
It's not acessarily what to think. We don't need necessarily
(20:02):
need to And I think that this is where I
was going originally.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I remember my original thought.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
When you are exercised, when you're doing a critical exercise,
an exercise in critical thinking, when you're doing that, you
don't necessarily need to come up with an answer, right,
it's just going through the process.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
What's how you think about something, you know, human cause,
climate change?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I want to be careful.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
But what I did was to study for ten or
twelve pages. I read a few different books on the
subject that I felt, you know, we're highly rated. I
had some good and on a couple of different ways
of looking at it and forth, and then reading articles
and getting data and resource and things like this, and
(20:45):
it opens your eyes to how you feel about it.
Do we need to take care of the planet? Of course,
but are we doing it in the right way? Is
a question, right, okay, And that's what my conclusion is.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Right, But it's just the question, right, It's not necessarily
an answer to the question.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
You're asking, are we doing it in the right ways?
And at least at.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
That problem and I give suggestions, okay, but at that
point you're just prompting the reader and and don't let
me let me again, I haven't read the book and
its entirety, but I at that point I got the
impression that you're prompting the reader to make the next
take the next step. And yes, like just think about this, right,
think about this for a second. Right, you're not necessarily
giving them an answer.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Have you seen the TV series Land Man?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (21:30):
It's been recommended to me by quite a few people,
and I have yet, I have yet to look at
them to watch them.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
That's Billy Billy, Bob Thornton, right, And I just watched
the first episode last night, but I've seen. One of
the things that I really enjoyed was one of them
where he's he's talking about the windmills, okay and yeah,
and he explains that all the energy putting into And
I actually have not from watching that TV series, but
(21:58):
I have in my book about the you know, the
wind turbines and everything else. And if you're going to
look at something as an engineer, see my background's engineering.
That's another thing that drove me to critical thinking because
I worked on satellites or in the ground support equipment
for the Space Shuttle. I've worked on computers. I've done
all sorts of different types of things. But you better
(22:18):
be a critical thinker, and you better be able to
listen with the facts and data and empirical evidence to understand.
But when you look at these wind turbines and things
like this, you ask the simple question, crater to grave,
what's it cost you build these incredible monolith type things?
They can cause harm to you know, the border population things.
(22:40):
That's just one thing, but how much oil does it
take to manufacture these things? How much oil does it
take to run it? How long are their useful lives?
How much energy are they generating over the twenty years
that they're good. Once you have to get rid of them,
and you know, you put them in landfills and things
like this.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Start asking those questions. That's what I do in the book.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
As I ask the questions, I'm not saying I totally
have the answer, but it's very questionable whether they're really
helping us.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And I'm glad you get that's a great segue because
that's part of people get the wrong impression. I think,
I think And I'm not gonna say all people that's
too much of a blanket statement, right, that's too blanket.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Of a statement.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
But I think there's a lot of people that when
you start discussing the idea of critical thinking, they take
almost they take it creates a posture of defense, like
a defensive posture, and a lot of people they'll get
kind of defensive about it. Well, what do you mean
critical thinking? Are you saying I'm not smart? Are you're
(23:45):
not saying that I'm not thinking things through? Right? And
and that can be that can be a little bit
difficult to overcome. So this is the segue you explore
decision making with imperfect information crook, right, you talk about that, right,
and so I want to kind of turn that and say, okay,
(24:05):
so if you're listening to this podcast or if you're watching,
how would someone doing that, you know, watching listening? How
do they apply that concept in you know, fast moving,
high stakes environments like business, you know, or decision making
in a political landscape. How do you do that? That's
(24:26):
a lot that you have to be able to. I
think if you're dealing with imperfect information, you should be
able to determine the imperfect part, right, Am I wrong?
Speaker 4 (24:36):
No, it's that's correct. I have a close friend of mine.
I just talked to him. He was and he suggested
that I put in human nature, which I do in
the book, because human nature has a big component of this, right,
I can come with the most perfect idea. For example,
let's talk about global you know, climate change, right right?
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Why not?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
What are the lungs of the planet the forest right
right now? I'm an engineer, but I'm not crazy about
the ones that can strip down forest, you know, and
just cut out all the trees super fascinate everything else.
Why not work away so the forest don't cut down.
Maybe we paid somebody, you know, you could call it
ransom or whatever, but is that a smart on you know,
would that help us? Those are the lungs of the
(25:21):
you know, greenery is the lungs of our planet and
it has increased, but we can tear it down and
we can cause major products. Why not look at that, okays,
as a way of helping our environment. Another one is
fishing areas. You know, you get these incredible areas of fishing,
and if you take certain places and say you can't
(25:42):
fish in here, and make the punishment so severe that
they can't, but fish will proliferate and then they'll spawn off,
you know, come off, and they'll go into all these
other areas and then people can fish in those areas
and you can just generate this using nature in the
proper ways.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
And we're not doing that. And why is that?
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Partially because it's not politically smart for a lot of people, right,
because keeping problems in place is the way politicians stay
in power.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
That's a big problem.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I would I would tend to agree with you.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
I would tend to agree with, because you know, if
you remove yeah, now you're you're right, in my opinion,
you're correct.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I mean, if you if you do solve some of
the problems that are that.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Are generating the focus that that you have, or that
you're able to leverage for power or however.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
You want to frame that, it's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
I think it's an unfortunate reality of where we live
today because I think I would like to think that
at some point in time most of the decisions that
were being made were in somewhere or an other aimed.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
At resolving problems.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Right, But when you start to look at it, right,
when you start to look at it, I think you
find the opposite. I think you find the opposite that
that many times that the decisions that are being made
are are are falling, are stopping short of solving a
problem because the problem itself is something that is.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Profitable.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
You know, again, it can it can lead to, you know,
a continuation of a power situation.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yes, right, I mean.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Well, when you say profitable or profitable to who? For politicians,
where do they get their power? They get their power
from saying that they're going to be solving problems A
lot of times they're just proliferating and keeping the problem
going right. Thamas soul Has has one of his uh,
one of many profound things he has in there is
asked the question on any policy or procedure or program
(27:46):
or whatever compared to what at what cost? And what
are the hard facts? And if you start doing that,
you're going to find some really interesting things.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Oh yeah, No, I thought.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
The action was all about and then and then morphed
into something else.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
No, And and I think that's a that's a very
good point.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I think that the intention And and many times when
I've had these kind of conversations, again, I always try
to go back to, like, well, what was your original intent,
Like what was it that you were trying to solve,
what was the problem that was presenting itself, and how
are you trying to solve it?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Now I've learned in the last five six.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Years about and and can understand it in a much
more tangible way. Is the the in the the baked
in bias that that that comes into play when when
problem solving, this is is is the intent.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
In this in the in the area that I work
my my my employment right one of the intents.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Is to ensure that.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
The sales agents are following a specific pattern. Like I'm
in the telecom industry, so it's like it's a call flow, right,
you want your sales agents to do things in a
certain order and with certain direction and intent. Right, And
that's great, right, But there's a bias there that all
(29:24):
of the agents will be able to sell as well
as follow the call flow. It's a bias. It's built in, right, Right.
They think that, okay, hey, this call flow will gain.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Us more sales. And I've always argued no, because they
don't know how to sell.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
They know how to follow a call flow, that's fine,
but you're not teaching them any kind of sales methodology here.
They're not really learning how to sell. They're learning how
to pairrot. They're learning how to follow a script. And
it's going to work a certain amount of the time. Right,
It's going to work just because numbers. Right, You're just
going to have certain people that are going to be
effective by that particular script and say, oh yeah, hey,
(30:02):
that sounds like the best thing. Let me go ahead
and take that from you, and boom, there's a sale.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
But that's you know, a broken clock is right twice
a day kind of thing. Right, So when you look
at that and you're trying to trying to figure out
you know, and you go into this in the book
as well. Is that I think you refer to it
as the importance of multiple intelligences and self awareness? Right,
(30:29):
So how is it that someone can start to identify
their own cognitive strengths?
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Like how is it that I like to think?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
And maybe I'm wrong, I could be wrong, but I
like to think that I understand where my cognitive strengths
lie and what I understand innately. And then I try
to bring in subject matter experts such as yourself, to
have conversations to test that, like how much do I
really know? And how much more do I have to know?
You start with the premise of you know, I know,
(31:00):
I don't know what I don't know? Right, and then
you add the question help me understand? Right, That's how
I approach things.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
But that's me. But how do I help people other
than me?
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
How do I help?
Speaker 2 (31:15):
How do we help people identify and leverage his own strength,
their own strengths for critical thinking?
Speaker 4 (31:20):
One of the major things that we as human beings,
and this is just about everybody. Okay, we don't want
to be wrong, right, Okay, So if we don't want
to be wrong, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
People see people go to their graves not to be wrong.
Once they've made.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
A decision, good or bad or ugly, they will find
a way of defending it. And this is a problem.
If you want to get over an o'n bias, check.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Your ego at the door. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
When I first on the first book I wrote, it
was I started in nineteen ninety five and I had
a class with a guy named Arthur Frederick guyed Arthur
Frederick Kay has written over four hundred books. That's nuts,
that's crazy, written over four hundred books. Most people haven't
read a fun books, right, And so I went to
(32:08):
the class and I was that one person where I
want to learn. So I had this great idea for
a book, and I start writing, and I write all
this stuff down and I'm so proud of myself that
I've written this, and I think it's the greatest thing
since slice spread Right, I give it to him and.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Came back with more red than black on it.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
And I had to make a decision, right, and I
decided I can either get upset and walk out of
here and indignant and not learning thing, or check my
ego at the door and start learning. And I chose
to start learning. And he taught me so much about writing.
(32:47):
At the point, I was a horrible writer. I'm a
pretty decent writer now. I've sold thousands of books. But
that's because I was able to do That is one
of the most important things I was able to do.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
And if the.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
One thing that people can do to change is really
check yourself and going am I doing this because of
personal prejudices or am I doing it because it is
the right thing to go do it?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No?
Speaker 1 (33:13):
It does.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I mean I think that's a simple way for people
to understand that is, like, you know, check it at
the door, right.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
In order to in order to achieve and maintain a
growth mentality, you have to, in my opinion, assume nothing, right.
I think I don't think I can assume anything. I
think you have to at least question it, right. You
can have your your thoughts, like I think this is correct,
(33:41):
or I've studied enough to feel comfortable that this particular
position is one that can be defended, right, but if
you really really want to be have a growth mentality,
you have to be able to put that aside for
a minute and say, Okay, let me.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Hear what your perspective is. Let me hear what you're.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Saying, and maybe that informs what it is that i'm
I think that's a.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Lot of times.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
It ref reinforces, reinforces what you believe.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Once in a while, and once as we grow and
as we mature, we get more set in our ways.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Everybody. It just is.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
I think it's just neurology, right paras just the way
people's brains.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
Were, and it should you Once you've been successful in
a certain way for a long time, you don't change that.
Why would you. That's when you get in a big trouble.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
So, but that being said, to be a constant learner,
to be a lifelong learner, you've got to go am
I still thinking about this logically and rationally and you know,
and not something that's inherent in me To have a
belief that's because I want to believe it and it's
and not because it's true.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
So yeah, I recently was in a position that I
quoted George Bernard Shaw, Yes, and that the quote I
want women specifically because I wrote it down when I
quoted it, But it's something along the lines of, you
know you, let's see what at the end of it
(35:12):
is that the man who cannot change his mind cannot
progress at all. Right, there's no progress if you cannot
embrace change. Is essentially what he was saying, right, that
you have to be able to embrace change and understand
that again from my perspective, and again I'm just talking
about me when I say this, I'm like, it's about saying, Okay, well,
(35:34):
wait a second again, what don't I know about this?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Is there something I don't know here?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Like, help me understand what it is that I don't know,
and perhaps there's something there that will will persuade me.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Perhaps perhaps, But.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Typically it ends up, like you said, it ends up
reinforcing what you had already come to, Like I've already
come to this conclusion. I'm not being rooted in a
conclus to where I'm inflexible, but at least from that perspective, again,
you've informed yourself enough to where you can defend your
position and be open enough to understand that you could
potentially end up conceding a point and even in that defense.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Well, and that's the other thing too.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Is another thing that's very helpful that I've found is
don't throw the bb out with the bath water. And
what I mean by that is sometimes you find somebody
who you have a lot of respect for and they
have some great stuff or they even have horrible stuff,
but they.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Were right about something right, right, And.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
You can't say, well, they're wrong because they're this.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
You know, we've seen a lot of this with politics, right,
where people hate the person, but it's like, what about
their policies and procedures?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
What policies don't you like?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:50):
And that's really the question, and that's a hard question
to ask. I've been working on myself on that, to
ask these questions instead of getting into the degenerative thing
when you start just insulting a person, right, instead of
but what about the policies of this individual that you
don't like?
Speaker 3 (37:07):
What don't you like? And watch a lot of times
people become silent.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Right, no, agreed, like agreed, And I think that there's
even I think I see it now and again this
is just me, but I see it now, And there
is this determinative process of avoiding policy discussions. Right, there's
this there can be a position where you know, whatever,
(37:35):
whatever position is, position X, I believe in precision X. Right,
And then if you ask the question, well, why do
you believe in position X?
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Like, what is it that makes that the correct position
to take?
Speaker 2 (37:48):
And there's never really any substance behind those answers, right,
there's a lot of dancing around, there's a lot of
avoiding an answer, right, And I get it.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I mean from a political perspective. Sometimes it's self preservation.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Sometimes it's just perhaps that particular individual is being asked
a question that they're.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Not fully informed on.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Many times, I think the politicians that we elect, once
they're an elected in elected position, they rely on a
lot of other people to inform them right about what's
going on.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
And if they get.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Cornered and they're having to ask or answer a very
specific policy, they don't have the answer. It's not that
they're not familiar with the subject matter. They could very
well be familiar with the subject matter, but they don't
know the specifics of the policy, right.
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Yes, And when you talk about when I see some
people and I've seen these interview the man on the
street type of thing, and they go up and this
person's pushing for something and then they're asked and they
don't have an answer. So then it begs the question
to me. And that was another thing the professor taught
me this doctor, I mean, and you know, begging the question. Okay,
so begs the question to me is like, why are
(38:59):
they out there or petitioning for something that they don't
believe in. There's some reason some of them may there's
an argument they're getting paid, Okay, fine, but there's another
argument too. Everybody wants to be part of something, right,
So they're out there with their friends thinking they're helping
(39:19):
when they don't even know what they're going up against.
That's scary to me. That's really scary.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I agree. I agree, and I find myself thinking that
quite often.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
It's one of the times that I will rail at
the television right, and I'm always I'm always like I've
been in situations where I've been at a rally or
I've been involved in something right where I was there
and actually experienced it. And most of the time for me,
it's exponential. I want to be there because I want
to see this, I want to take it in. You know,
this is maybe it's historic in some way or whatever, right,
(39:52):
whatever that might be. But there's a reason to be there,
and I know what my reason is, right, But they
never interview me, Like I'm never the person that they
and I'll be sitting at home and they ask someone,
I'm like, why are you asking that guy that?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
I mean obvious, this guy doesn't know, right, no offense to.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Him or her or whoever they might be, But it's
like you're asking the wrong people the questions right, ask
the people who might have a genuine interest. And it
almost seems to me that from a media perspective, they
kind of avoid those people because it's a lot easier
to consume the guy who doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
It's it's more entertaining to talk to the guy who
doesn't know.
Speaker 4 (40:29):
Yes, And the news media, like you said, they're going
to focus on the bad. They're going to focus on
the things. They're going to get on the.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Most right, they're going to get the looks.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
And that kind of brings you to my next question,
because I was I was looking at this and I
was like, you know, we talked a little bit about
social Actually I talked about social media. I guess that's fair,
but we talked about, you know, in your book you
talk about you know how independent critical thinking right, and
and with social media now, I mean, as I mentioned,
it's an overload. It's intentional. It is focused on continuing
(41:03):
to keep your attention wherever your attention is. The the
idea is to is to monopolize your attention, right, Where
are your eyes? Where your ears? What is that you're
looking at? What is it that you're you're you're reading,
uh watching? More than likely, it's what are you watching?
Why are you watching it?
Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know?
Speaker 2 (41:22):
And how do I keep you here? Because I've monetize that,
I've monetized your attention. So with that, what do you
see as some of the threats to independent critical thinking?
And how do we combat that.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
In the modern age? You worms, all right, well, I
can wear the words.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
I think.
Speaker 4 (41:49):
The Real Story of Fake News by Mark Dice hits
some great topics and so forth. But there's a and
I talk about this in the book, and it's when
you first do the subject, it's you know, they're brainwashing,
and you think of brainwashing and somebody in a quiet
little dark room being, you know, with lights on all
(42:09):
this other stuff, and a lot of the media is brainwashing.
I'm seeing people that I know that I feel that
they're pretty darn intelligent. And when you get past the
first layer and try to question why they believe this,
they can't answer things. That's what's scary to me is
(42:30):
so people can't even they're not critically thinking. So I
think today there's a tremendous amount of brainwashing.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
I agree with them. Social media and it's engaging.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
It's it's tough when I start looking for something and
it's like, this is entertaining, this is entertaining, this is entertaining,
And I keep asking myself, am I being brainwashing on this?
And I try to go with the sources that I trust,
that I believe in, that are being as honest as possible,
and that are reflective of other things that I'm reading
(43:00):
from other areas and so forth, because over time you'll
find that things will be consistent from great resources. And
that's why I like books. I mean I love books
and giving an idea of growing up, I was exactly
the opposite. I was held back in second grade because
I couldn't read. I went to remedial reading. My mother
(43:23):
let me read comic books because I wouldn't read anything else.
When they sent me to Evelyn Wood's Reading Dynamics, I literally.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Went, well. I went to Henry Ford Community College.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
I went to Wayne County Community College to get through
English because as an engineer, I'm never going to need it.
I paid for that sin for many years and now
I'm a writer. But it gives me an insight that
a lot of people don't have. And that's it to
make it. When I write, it's to a really smart
fifteen year old. It's not insulting to anybody. And that's
(43:55):
how I write is because I want to. I don't
want it to be talking down to people. I don't
want to come across as I know all this stuff. Right,
Am I critical thinker?
Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yes? But I could also say design.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
For yourself, right I don't.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
I don't have but for people to become a critical thinker, yeah, it's.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
That the media watch what's going on, and watch how
you're thinking and ask the questions of yourself, is this
impacting me?
Speaker 3 (44:26):
And how you know, on my.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Emotions getting involved in things and maybe sometimes just get
off of it for a few days or you know,
or a couple of weeks and things and see if
you feel better.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
And things like this, right, I would I would agree
with you there, and I think for me that's my
strategy because to your point, the the manipulation of the dopamine,
that that that is the dopamine hit that you get
with social media, right, that's it's it's it's a neurological
(44:58):
conditioning that is well understood by those who are are
you know, technology partners in the social media age.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
They understand that. There there's no question that they understand that.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So even to your point, again, I'm the same way,
like I will look for certain I do look for
the counter arguments, right, I do like because I know
where they are and they're easier to find.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right. Counter arguments are always easier to find.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
But when you when you found sources that are that
are consistent, and so you're you're, yeah, you're bouncing from
a couple of different you know, Uh, maybe it's a
different reporter or a different writer, or it's in a
different periodical.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Uh. And to your you said it earlier, if.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
The if the footnotes started matching, right, and you're able
to get those sources of citations and they start to
like line up, then you can feel a little bit
more comfortable about that particular perspective or that particular point like, okay, hey,
there's there's some for lack of better terms, there's some
science behind this.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
Right, And you hear other people that are saying the
same things what I started getting off, and I got
a hoot if I'm tangent.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
But on books, what I find is you take a book.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
And a lot of times it's a thousand hours or
two thousand dollars and it's a lifetime experience. When you
look at some of the ones. Del Carnegie's book is
a muster read. It should be a muster read for everybody.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Friends of influence people, I would agree him.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
And old school is zig Ziggler, right, yeah, I think
Ziggler is a great read.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Oh he definitely, he's a He's an excellent read. And
also is who's think and grow rich. These books, some
of them took twenty, you know, twenty twenty five years
of experience and things and so to write. So you
could take this any book and read it and you
get the benefit of twenty or thirty years experience in
(46:49):
ten to fifteen to twenty hours. And when you think
the magnitude of that, you know, they one of the
quotes and I'm going to paraphrase it, but you know,
a person who never reads a book leads one life.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
A person who reads a thousand book can be a thousand.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I literally ran across that same like two weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I ran across and I haven't the book and I
can find out. I'm not going to go.
Speaker 4 (47:11):
But you know, for this book, I end up spending
like twenty six I'm around twenty six hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Now that's everything.
Speaker 4 (47:18):
That's that's researching, that's reading books, that's doing whatever I
needed to do to get the information. You might read
a book and you know, pull off a few fantastic
paragraphs out of it that are that are profound and
things like this, And there's a lot of great, great
people through time that have rock solid information that you
(47:39):
can learn from and grow. So critical thinking anybody can
do it if they really want to do it. But
it's got to be You've got to be honest with yourself,
you know.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
So is it fair to say that that's what you
mean by a new read of critical thinker?
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Is that where you're going with that? I mean, how
do how do we?
Speaker 2 (48:00):
And it's not easy and I'm not asking you to
put a nice little bow on this, right.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I mean that's not the point.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
The point is like, when you're talking about a new
breed of critical thinking, what is it that you're saying
when you're when you're saying that, what is what is
the meaning behind that phrasing?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
If you will.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
I'm trying to remember when I wrote that, But it's basically, uh,
you know, is we have so much information today. It's
it's more of information overload than anything. And it's and
it's being able to select what is going to be
the most helpful for you and everything, but just systematically
(48:40):
going out there and I can give you the things.
That's why I wrote them.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (48:44):
Ahead an open and curious mind is number one? Okay
that and like I say, that sounds so much simpler
than it is, Well yeah, or it really, it really does.
Getting a first class education I don't necessarily mean going
to school. You know, if you ever listened to El
Musk and I like him, that may be controversial, but
I don't care. I think he's done fantastic stuff becoming
(49:04):
an eternal student. And when I say education, whether you
educate yourself or educate your there get a great education
from good sources, you know, because today it's just it
can get insane.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
These people are in the debt one hundred.
Speaker 4 (49:17):
Two hundred three hundred thousand dollars for an education that
they can either get paid forty fifty thousand dollars in
their job.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
How long you you know you're paying off for the
rest of your life.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I can attest to that.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
My daughter has got her hazard a doctorate in psychology,
which you know, kudos obviously, right, and she's a brilliant
young lady.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
But it's cost it's not cheap.
Speaker 4 (49:42):
Well, the next thing is finding your meaning purpose when people, everybody,
we all have to have a meeting and purpose and
it makes life a lot simpler. It helps you get
up in the morning and help you understand what you're
going to go do and things like this, and so
you you.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
Know, we all have to.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Tom Hopkins had a statement to the most productive thing possible,
I've given more and again may be paraphrasing, but basically
sometimes rest is the most important thing.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
You know.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
There's there's all sorts of things like that become a
focus to reader. And as they say, I can't say
enough about that because you can put on an article
which may somebody may have taken four or five hours
on but you your book that somebody put, you know,
five hundred, one thousand or two thousand hours and things
like this, and there's there's so many good ones out
(50:30):
there that are just incredible and read from a wide
array of people. I've learned so much from so many
different people that helped me to understand when you hear
the arguments from one side or another, you go now,
because of this, this is what I believe, and it's
you know, you get a pretty solid base. Learn from
great educators. You know, I've been really blessed to have
(50:52):
some fantastic teachers. You know, Thomas soul Or, I've never
met him. I would love to shake his hand. He's
a fantastic teacher. Doctor Kirk Meanie and had other fantastic
teachers and you know, going through school and things like this,
and I was.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Lucky to have those things right.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
And I think everybody needs to search out those teachers
and have people help them. Our mentors and teachers and
people that you work with, Okay, become a student of history.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
History teachers are a lot.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
You know, when somebody goes, oh, everything's some terrible everything,
look back in history. Oh right, gosh, the carnage and
everything else that we as human beings have done to
each other is really not a good thing. And knowing
about it, and then knowing in the blessed time that
we live and it could all change tomorrow, I get it.
(51:42):
But you know, for now, we're living a pretty darn
good time and we need to appreciate that and appreciate,
you know, what that means, and the freedoms that we
have really understand whether it's freedoms come from don't let
me yourself talk about it. Everybody has to find that
for themselves. What does that really me? And then activities.
(52:03):
You know, personally, I play poker, and I'm not really
a gambler so much, but it's a critical thinking game
that or chess. It just happens to be poker because
you have to use both sides of the brain. I
love the mathematics, and that's how I got into writing
mathematics about poker, because it was fascinating to me being
an engineer. There's fifty two cards and the mathematics. I've
(52:24):
written two books and a workbook on it so far,
and I'm considering a third book. Bigger and I've read
like a few dozen books on it. It's just amazing.
For fifty two little cards game called Texas Nolan the Hole,
but it uses both sides of the brain and you're
making the constant decisions and imperfect information and trying to
calculate everything else. But chess is another game. But games
(52:47):
to you know, really stimulate the brain and get you going.
And then another thing is experienced different cultures. Now, if
you have the money, then you can go travel. I've
been very fortunate. I traveled well over forty countries and
things like this. But if you don't have that, you
can go down to these little enclaves of what they
called of certain cultures and experience through that. So it's
(53:08):
not like you have to have a ton of money
to go do this type of stuff. You can see things,
but opening your mind to different cultures, because the strongest
cultures take from each other. You know, the Chinese, you
know the water, the compass, all these other things.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
And then there was a.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Chinese head back in thirteen fourteen hundreds, because like I
think it was the eleven hundreds or so they were.
Europe was not up to where they were until the
eighteen hundreds. But there was an emperor that came in
and said they're not going to travel anymore in the sea,
and that just shut them down and so then they
you know, atrophied where Europe grew from there. So you know,
(53:49):
there's a little emperor whatever. You know, there's some really
bad things.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
Well.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
The other thing too, I mean, I appreciate you saying that,
I mean, because I think that that helps people kind
of understand it's a more comprehensive overview of what we've kind.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Of hit on, you know, a little, a little.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
You know, I've tried to kind of keep us on
a tract to where we've we've kind of maintained that
that critical thinking premise and introduced a couple of different ideas.
But the breakdown there is just, you know, to me,
almost second nature, like you name those.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Things right, and I'm like, I do that? Do that right?
Not everybody does.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
And I think that's probably more so what you're after
at the end of the day is it's like if
you take a minute and zoom out and look at
things with a little bit more of an open mind,
then critical thinking almost is a natural progression from there.
Speaker 3 (54:44):
Is that fair, yes, and keeping your open mind.
Speaker 4 (54:49):
I mean, I love diversity, not the way the government
tries it, but meeting people from different cultures and different
ways of thinking and everything else, you learn so much.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, just open your mind to absolutely one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (55:01):
And in my experience, one of the things that was
the most I would say it was probably it's a
very critical part of my growth mentality process.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
And and and study, if you will. Right, my son.
Speaker 2 (55:17):
Plays soccer, and we lived in Houston, and so as
soon as he started playing at any particular level of
you know, competitive soccer, there were Afrikaners, there were Brits,
there were you know, kids from you know, all over
the world who were playing the same game. Right, And
(55:38):
so you meet those people, you meet those parents, you
start talking to me, have the conversations you find that
you know they're they they're Arsenal fans and you're a
Newcastle fan whatever, Right, And but it gets you talking
to other people and you get all these new experiences
that you might not have had otherwise. To your point
about being a world traveler, one of my best friends
(55:59):
is is a was an expat here in the US,
got his US citizenship, the whole nine yards, and they
side can go back to England. Right, So that's not
a big lead. But I went to go visit him
in England and I traveled to the north of England.
I went to Newcastle, and I saw Newcastle, and I
met people in Newcastle and went to four hundred year
old pubs and stuff like that. And that changes who
(56:21):
you are. It changes how you look at things. The
fact that we were even in the UK and you've
got to visit buildings that are older than our country.
Speaker 4 (56:29):
Because you hear all this stuff on the news or whatever.
Then you meet people and you sit down and have
a beer with them, right, and then you ask them
what do you think about this? And you really listen
to their answers and you find out won a lot
of the same things.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah, and yep. I think that's probably a good place
to kind of maybe end.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
It is that, you know, I think it's if critical
thinking as a as a practice at minimums should lead
to good conversations like this was agreed.
Speaker 1 (57:05):
All right, Well that's that's it for us here today.
We can probably go like for four hours. Honestly, we
could easily this. This would be an easy conversation.
Speaker 2 (57:13):
But I want to kind of wrap on that if
you are interested in I'm going to have a link
up on the site. It'll have this book as well
as the other writings. If you're a poker player, maybe
you want to read one of Chuck's poker books. But
I'll put this up there so you guys have access
to it. You can you can look into it further,
use your own critical thinking to examine the critical thinking
that that Chuck is talking about here.
Speaker 1 (57:35):
I just found it fascinating.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
I found it fascinating that there's a guy like this
in our neighborhood. I don't think you're specifically from Leander,
but he was at a Leander event and I'm like,
I've got to get this guy on the podcast. So, Chuck,
I appreciate your time. Thank you so very very much.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this. I have to much thank you.
And that's it for this episode. Guys, keep tuned. We're
going to have a few new things coming up here
(57:57):
in the next few weeks, and we're going to be
examining things Leander as well as things a little bit
outside of Leander. So Hi, thank you for your time,
and look forward to the next episode. And and I'm
going to read this book next. This one goes on
my bedside because I'll this will be the one I
read next. So thanks Chuck, I appreciate it. All right,
that's it for today, Thanks guys. Lean and Leander was
(58:23):
recorded at Lantern Media Studio, engineered by Morgan Tuttle, produced
and edited by Andrew Naude. Music provided by Ben Sound
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