Learn: Knowledge vs. Wisdom, Endowed Progress Effect, Mark Twain

Read: 3 mins

Greetings from Austin,

Here are three goodies for you this week. 

🤔 Knowledge vs. Wisdom

The whole “knowledge is power” thing is totally misleading.  

Miles Kington described it better, “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.”

Wisdom is the application of knowledge.

When we just turn information into knowledge, it feels productive. But it’s really just a form of procrastination. 

It’s unused energy.

It’s putting fuel in the car, but without driving. Or taking a pre-workout, but then not going to the gym. 

Now more than ever, we’re flooded with knowledge, but starving for wisdom. 

⭐ Car Wash Stamps

Checkout at pretty much any retail store today, and they'll ask you:

“Would you like to join our rewards program?!” 

Annoying? Yes. But maybe they're onto something...

Turns out humans are quite predictable creatures, which is not lost on most companies. 

The Endowed Progress Effect was discovered in the early 2000s when researchers gave out two sets of loyalty cards at a local car wash. Both cards rewarded a free wash after a customer’s 8th wash. 

One set of cards had eight blank stamps, while the other set had ten blank stamps, BUT with two pre-stamped ones. Aka perceived progress.

The results were wild. 

Both sets had exactly eight blank stamps, so you’d think they’d yield roughly the same results, right? No siree. 

After nine months, only 19% of people in the first group completed their cards, making it to the free wash. Yet, an astonishing 34% completed from the second group with the two pre-stamps. That’s almost a 2x higher completion rate!

This inclination toward “progress” is predictable, given our hardwiring. 

The closer we get to a goal, the harder we work to complete it. This is called the goal gradient effect. Studying rats in a lab in the 1930s showed they run faster and pull harder — the closer they got to their 🧀 reward.  

We now know humans are the exact same. So you want to achieve something? Break it down into teeeeny-tiny steps to progress toward the end goal. 

(Article here.)

🕤 Ahora 

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” – Mark Twain

Salud,

Mitchell