- Clarity Drops
- Posts
- Three Man Make a Tiger
If you’re new here, every week I share a handful of high-signal bits. Think of them as clarity espressos.
Let’s get to it:
• Makes-You-Think Tweet: what humans (don’t) want
• Mind-Expanding Concept: three man make a tiger
• Cool Quote or Question: on virtues
• High-Signal Content: 37signals Guide for Internal Communication
Makes-You-Think Tweet
To a useful approximation, humans want to be comfy, healthy, fed, warm, respected, and loved. But I think a better approximation is that humans try to avoid being open to criticism. They work harder at blocking others' criticisms than they do at any other goal.
— Robin Hanson (@robinhanson)
3:31 AM • Jun 20, 2019
“I’m not like thaaat.” Ok big boy. Alrite.
Mind-Expanding Concept
Three Man Make a Tiger
generated by Midjourney | sartorial sumatran tiger at an upscale restaurant drinking
If some guy tells you he saw a tiger roaming around NYC, you'd say he's lying (or that his mushroom trip is still on). If a second dude tells you the same thing, you'd begin to wonder. But if a third repeated it, you'd get closer to believing it.
We tend to believe what gets repeated over and over again. Even when it's absurd.
I was too lazy to google it but I suspect that’s related to our deeply engrained need to fit in groups. "Hey, if 3 people said it, that's too many people to go against. Let me accommodate. That's not even thaaaat crazy."
What's curious is that we don't like repeating ourselves. For some reason, we assume that saying something once or twice is enough. My non-scientific guess why: repeating ourselves intuitively means we were not heard the first time, which means we're not important. And we like to feel like we're the last coke in the desert whenever we can.
So there's an opportunity here - on the gap between these two tendencies.
Here's how I'm practicing repetition in my life:
When talking to my team, family, or customers, I repeat what's important to the point I notice I'm being repetitive. You notice it earlier than people internalize it.
I’m creating the ritual of articulating my thoughts, principles, and goals on paper so I can review them regularly. Internalizing what's important is not necessarily automatic.
I’m reminding myself to tell my daughter I love her every day. E-V-E-R-Y D-A-Y. If there's one thing I want her to know in her bones is that I do love her no matter what. When the basics are essential, don’t forget the basics.
Cool Quote or Question
It is more pleasurable to enforce virtue than to exercise it.
High-Signal Content
“Poor communication creates more work.
Writing solidifies, chat dissolves. Substantial decisions start and end with an exchange of complete thoughts, not one-line-at-a-time jousts. If it’s important, critical, or fundamental, write it up, don’t chat it down.”
See you next week,
Filipe