“if a solution to someone’s problem looks obvious, assume it isn’t and try to understand why.” This struck me pretty hard. I was wondering though, how effective this is. How much has it improved your listening skills and maybe even your empathy? I find that it could also be counterintuitive—how much has it made you overthink?
I guess it generalizes to: if there’s an unsolved problem and the solution looks obvious, you’re probably missing something.
Beware the natural tendency towards overconfidence
It’s easiest to think of the easy happy path. The problems are usually more nuanced and less mentally available.
Other people thinking about it are probably not being dumb or thoughtless.
I don’t think it’s caused me to overthink in that if something seems one dimensional it’s probably being underthought.
There are learnable exceptions, like a friend might have a mental blindspot to a certain kind of solution, or you might consistently overthink certain situations.
To be honest, I’m still not a great listener because I haven’t squashed the urge to think of advice before empathizing.
“if a solution to someone’s problem looks obvious, assume it isn’t and try to understand why.” This struck me pretty hard. I was wondering though, how effective this is. How much has it improved your listening skills and maybe even your empathy? I find that it could also be counterintuitive—how much has it made you overthink?
I guess it generalizes to: if there’s an unsolved problem and the solution looks obvious, you’re probably missing something.
Beware the natural tendency towards overconfidence
It’s easiest to think of the easy happy path. The problems are usually more nuanced and less mentally available.
Other people thinking about it are probably not being dumb or thoughtless.
I don’t think it’s caused me to overthink in that if something seems one dimensional it’s probably being underthought.
There are learnable exceptions, like a friend might have a mental blindspot to a certain kind of solution, or you might consistently overthink certain situations.
To be honest, I’m still not a great listener because I haven’t squashed the urge to think of advice before empathizing.