Learn: Understanding trap, what do you see, conversation boosters

Read: 3 mins

Greetings from Austin,

Holy moly, how is it already Q4? Regardless the quarter, this newsletter is your weekly guide to a more meaningful and intentional life. Let's dive in.

🛠️ Understanding vs. Solving

We have two modes of operation: understanding and solving. 

Yet, we get stuck only in understanding mode when consuming content. Like the mimosas at a bachelorette brunch, this mode is bottomless. We pour countless hours into courses, videos, books, podcasts…

But even if we reach 100% understanding (which is never possible), we still have the problem. 

Real progress comes not from actively understanding, but from actively solving problems.

Next time you’re immersed in content, pause and ask: 'Am I understanding or solving?' 

👀 What do you see? 

NBA champion Andre Iguodala was asked recently to name the smartest player he ever played with.

Without hesitation, he answered Andre Miller, specifically for one question Miller would ask:

“What do you see?” (clip here)

This forced AI to watch film and study the game.

I love this question.

It's also similar to Shaan's hack to get people to think critically:

This "What do you see?" concept also applies to us individually. Our answers will change based on where we look.

Which is the point. 

But we see nothing if we don’t ask the question and look. 

⚡ Conversation Boosters 

Whether talking to friends, connections at an event, or teammates at work, the words we choose make a huge impact on the quality of our interactions.

Being back in Austin, I’ve been going to a bunch of events and noticed a pattern. 

The most thought-provoking and engaging conversations are when both people share personal anecdotes and use descriptive adjectives as breadcrumbs for more connection. 

The least engaging convos occur when we use lazy adjectives. For example, I used to say, “oh that's interesting.” (yawn)

To be honest, I sometimes still slip up. But then just add the word “because” directly after as my cue to explain why.

“That’s interesting BECAUSE (personal anecdote or it reminds me of xyz).”

Try adding “because…” to your next convo to make it more interesting engaging and thought-provoking. 

Salud, 

Mitchell 

Ps. T Swift’s new guy friend song