Five Whys

Your capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn faster than the environment changes.

Malcolm Knowles's principles of adult learning: self-direction, experience as resource, readiness, problem-centered orientation, intrinsic motivation.

Amishi Jha's research: attention is a finite, depletable, but trainable cognitive resource — short daily mindfulness measurably improves it.

Approach a situation as if you knew nothing.

Unusual or bizarre material is more memorable than common material.

Hierarchy of cognitive learning: Remember → Understand → Apply → Analyze → Evaluate → Create. Benjamin Bloom, 1956 (revised 2001).

Asking for a conclusion based on sympathy rather than logic.

Federal oversight intended to protect tribal assets creates friction that devalues the land.

Digital-age learning theory: knowledge lives in networks; the skill is forming and pruning the right connections.

We dismiss the ideas and merits of people we dislike.

Errors in reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument.

Confident incorrect outputs may rank higher than hedged correct ones.

Believing people get what they deserve.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Originators paid on volume, not on default rates, fueled the subprime collapse.

Brain system that decides what's important right now.

Progress more often comes from removing the wrong things than adding the right ones — cut activities, commitments, beliefs, relationships that drain.

Means-tested benefits that drop sharply at income thresholds penalize recipients for earning more.