The ULTIMATE Guide to Improving THINKING (Complete Cate… — Transcript

What does it mean to think? A lot of people use the term but have never really thought of what it means to actually think. Because we use the word all the time in sentences like "I think that's true" or "Let me think about it." But if I ask someone to actually define the word, they'll have trouble doing so. And thinking is the first category in our entire system, and it's not an accident. A formal definition states that thinking refers to the ability to process information, hold attention, store and retrieve information, and many other functions. But even these descriptions are very broad. It covers multiple parts, and our goal here today is to break down these vast explanations into a series of parts or subcategories which we can use to dive deeper into every cognitive action around the realm of thinking. We weigh thinking the highest in the nine categories because thinking is the integral part to every other action. Without thinking, all of social intelligence, reasoning, emotional intelligence, and every other category would fall apart.

Let's take social intelligence for example. Reading the room and others still requires processing what you're seeing and deciding what that actually means. Carl Jung actually proposed that thinking itself was one of the four core psychological functions. Thinking itself is an integral part to the way that humans operate, even mentioned in esoteric texts. Being analogous to the element of air or the symbol of air, that's because air itself has no shape on its own and it takes the form of whatever it moves through. Thinking works the same way. It isn't fixed and it moves through information, giving that information actual shape.

You may have also heard of the two modes of thinking. For example, thinking fast and slow. Essentially, we have two methods that can be defined psychologically, which is thinking consciously and thinking unconsciously. But for example, associated thinking is highly unconscious, but critical thinking is more conscious. I'll refrain from explaining that right now as we can illustrate the contrast between the two later on. There's a lot of factors that affect your ability to think. So first, we'll be going over all the subcategories and then how to improve and remove limitations on your actual thinking. From recognizing patterns to narrowing fields of possibility, we're covering literally everything. This video will have chapters on every section, so if you're looking for one specifically, feel free to skip to whatever you want. And before we get into it, I want you to take notes on every category and how to actually apply it. Make sure you aren't just wasting your time by watching this video, but actually utilizing the information to better your life. We're going to start by covering critical thinking as that's the one that most people misunderstand. And this is probably what you hear everywhere. You hear people say, oh, you have good critical thinking, even though they don't really know what they're talking about. Even at some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years. So critical thinking is the evaluation of claims, arguments, evidence, and assumptions, but using the standards of logical soundness and the adequacy of your evidence. It determines whether information is true, if sources are reliable, and whether influences are valid, and more. If you've noticed, we're evaluating the logic of information itself. So, you usually see weak critical thinking everywhere once you know what you're actually searching for. And that's why developing critical thinking is very useful. For example, if someone posts a statistic with no information behind it and nobody questions where it comes from, the issue is that people aren't using critical thinking in order to evaluate the validity of the claim. So it's completely different from being skeptical. Skepticism, without having standards, is simply intuitive doubting. It's focused on what the claim actually is, what is being used to support, and whether that foundation is even valid. Simply put, we're analyzing the foundation itself, like the presuppositions, and all assumptions for ideas and actions. If you can tackle those, you basically destroy someone's entire argument or idea very easily, as the foundation is the most susceptible part in any structure. So think about like someone's arguing with you, and then you're going to go after what they're presupposing. Now, presuppositions or presupposing something is simply when in an argument you're going off something that's already confirmed to be true. So for example, if I'm watching TV, I'm presupposing that I have eyes, right? So to make any arguments, you need to presuppose that there's logic because an argument has to be rational. If there's no logic in an argument, then it's irrational, right? So you see what I'm getting with here? So another example of issues that can arise with poor critical thinking is that people can argue without understanding the other's key terms for hours. So debates turn into semantical debates when this happens because both parties are misunderstanding each other. That's what I mean when I say presuppositions or things that we take for granted. There is a direct link between critical thinking and metacognition, which is just thinking about your own thinking. And research has shown that critical thinking has a direct positive effect on metacognition, which is then associated with higher psychological well-being and even stronger empathy. So metacognition is very important to develop, to say the least. So here's a quick little question to test your critical thinking. So a study comes out saying people who drink coffee live longer than people who don't.

A health brand uses this to market their coffee as a longevity product that extends your lifespan. So tell me, what is the issue with this? It looks right, the studies exist, and the claim also follows. I'll give you a second to think about it. So you can pause the video here and then write down your answer. Because we're going to be doing a little bit of these exercises to make sure that you're engaged and to make sure that you're actually thinking while watching the video. So

the issue is that the study shows correlation, not causation. So people who drink coffee might also tend to have stable morning routines, steady income, lower stress, or better access to healthcare. Any of those could be actually what's causing the longevity. So it doesn't necessarily have to be the thing that's being presupposed. Like, for example, we presuppose all those factors instead of coffee itself. It matters for outsmarting specifically, because when you can develop your critical thinking, you can regulate yourself and read others' internal states, which is where this category connects to social and emotional categories. It also allows you to self-regulate and free yourself from bias. A good example is Akiyama and how he always plans around the presuppositions that all the rules for the games have. So let's take minority rule for example, which is basically the split from power-aq. You just have to vote for the smaller group and you'll survive the round. But what the rules actually reward or presuppose is group coordination. Because building teams and turning the guesses is the entire strategy here. So without critical thinking, most people would just think that this is a game of pure chance. You skip the entire narrative or the entire idea that the game is built around group coordination. And that's done by literally trying to figure out,

okay, what is this game presupposing? What is this scenario presupposing? What is this person's argument presupposing? Those are all very good questions to, you know, habitually ask yourself. Now, to actually improve critical thinking, I'd say focus on proactive learning. Research heavily supp...

same way. It isn't fixed and it moves through information, giving that information actual shape.

You may have also heard of the two modes of thinking. For example, thinking fast and slow. Essentially, we have two methods that can be defined psychologically, which is thinking consciously and thinking unconsciously. But for example, associated thinking is highly unconscious, but critical thinking

is more conscious. I'll refrain from explaining that right now as we can illustrate the contrast between the two later on. There's a lot of factors that affect your ability to think. So first, we'll be going over all the subcategories and then how to

improve and remove limitations on your actual thinking. From recognizing patterns to narrowing fields of possibility, we're covering literally everything. This video will have chapters on every section, so if you're looking for one specifically, feel free to skip to whatever you want. And before

we get into it, I want you to take notes on every category and how to actually apply it. Make sure you aren't just wasting your time by watching this video, but actually utilizing the information to better your life. We're going to start by

covering critical thinking as that's the one that most people misunderstand. And this is probably what you hear everywhere. You hear people say, oh, you have good critical thinking, even though they don't really know what they're talking about. Even at some of the most

prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years. So critical thinking is the evaluation of claims. Are arguments, evidence, and assumptions, but using the standards of logical soundness and the adequacy

of your evidence. It determines whether information is true, if sources are reliable, and whether influences are valid, and more. If you've noticed, we're evaluating the logic of information itself. So, you usually see weak critical thinking everywhere once you know what you're

actually searching for. And that's why developing critical thinking is very useful. For example, if someone posts a statistic with no information behind it and nobody questions where it comes from, the issue is that people aren't using critical thinking in order to evaluate the

validity of the claim. So it's completely different from being skeptical. Skepticism, without having standards, is simply intuitive doubting. It's focused on what the claim actually is, what is being used to support, and whether that foundation is even valid. Simply put, we're

analyzing the foundation itself, like the presuppositions, and all assumptions for ideas and actions. If you can tackle those, you basically destroy someone's entire argument or idea very easily, as the foundation is the most susceptible part in any structure. So think about like

someone's arguing with you, and then you're going to go after what they're presupposing. Now, presuppositions or presupposing something is simply when in an argument you're going off something that's already confirmed to be true. So for example, if I'm watching TV, I'm presupposing that

I have eyes, right? So to make any arguments, you need to presuppose that there's logic because an argument has to be rational. If there's no logic in an argument, then it's irrational, right? So you see what I'm getting with here? So another example

of issues that can arise with poor critical thinking is that people can argue without understanding the other's key terms for hours. So debates turn into semantical debates when this happens because both parties are misunderstanding each other. That's what I mean when I say

presuppositions or things that we take for granted. There is a direct link between critical thinking and metacognition, which is just thinking about your own thinking. And research has shown that critical thinking has a direct positive effect on metacognition, which is then associated with

higher psychological well-being and even stronger empathy. So metacognition is very important to develop, to say the least. So here's a quick little question to test your critical thinking. So a study comes out saying people who drink coffee live longer than people who don't.

A health brand uses this to market their coffee as a longevity product that extends your lifespan. So tell me, what is the issue with this? It looks right, the studies exist, and the claim also follows. I'll give you a second to think about

it. So you can pause the video here and then write down your answer. Because we're going to be doing a little bit of these exercises to make sure that you're engaged and to make sure that you're actually thinking while watching the video. So

the issue is that the study shows correlation, not causation. So people who drink coffee might also tend to have stable morning routines, steady income, lower stress, or better access to healthcare. Any of those could be actually what's causing the longevity. So it doesn't

necessarily have to be the thing that's being presupposed. Like, for example, we presuppose all those factors instead of coffee itself. It matters for outsmarting specifically, because when you can develop your critical thinking, you can regulate yourself and read others' internal states, which is

where this category connects to social and emotional categories. It also allows you to self-regulate and free yourself from bias. A good example is Akiyama and how he always plans around the presuppositions that all the rules for the games have. So let's take minority

rule for example, which is basically the split from power-aq. You just have to vote for the smaller group and you'll survive the round. But what the rules actually reward or presuppose is group coordination. Because building teams and turning the guesses is the entire

strategy here. So without critical thinking, most people would just think that this is a game of pure chance. You skip the entire narrative or the entire idea that the game is built around group coordination. And that's done by literally trying to figure out,

okay, what is this game presupposing? What is this scenario presupposing? What is this person's argument presupposing? Those are all very good questions to, you know, habitually ask yourself. Now, to actually improve critical thinking, I'd say focus on proactive learning. Research heavily supports that

your mind weakens without the active use of testing the things that you learn. So challenge all the information that you read and learn. Another great practice is to use source interrogation and also making it habitual. So whenever someone brings information, obviously if it's

relevant, ask three things. 1. Where did the information come from? 2. What is it based on? 3. What would have to be true for this to be false? This is testing the claims itself, and by doing this, the habit will transfer to adjacent

areas. Also, be very wary of presuppositions. The easiest way to win an argument is just by asking why, or addressing what is automatically assumed. For example, for someone to make an argument on something, their presupposing logic exists, like I mentioned earlier. Without the

logic in their worldview, their entire claim just falls apart. So, in a gist, Critical thinking is just analyzing what has to be true for this to be true in sequential order and then attacking the antecedent or what comes before. That's literally all it

is. So it's one of the more basic ones, I'd say. It's very easy to understand once you understand the way that presuppositions work. So I'd recommend just going and studying on what they actually are, maybe watching a philosophical lecture on presuppositional arguments. It's

very good. And yeah. So now we're going to get into abstract thinking. Another extremely important method of thinking. Abstract thinking is the capacity to operate on ideas that are detached from their particular instantations. For example, when you reason about justice without reasoning

about a particular court case. So in terms of category and principle, instead of instance and example. This allows for things like mathematics, philosophy, and theoretical science because it depends on relationships and defines the greater ideas without specific instances. What makes it different

from critical thinking is that critical thinking tests the foundation and presuppositions of all the claims, but abstract thinking focuses more about what the claim actually is, but what kind of thing the claim actually is. So removing the specific instance in front of you.

Abstract thinking is extremely important because without it, you couldn't move from situations to actual other instances. So for example, I'm going to give you a principle so you can see how it would actually transfer. So in business, there is a principle that states

the party who can walk away with the least cost has the most leverage regardless of who seems powerful. So let's say you learn that from vendor contracts. It's very specific, right? So without abstract thinking, it would only stay within vendor contracts and business.

But with abstract thinking, you can apply that principle to anything like friendships, job offer negotiations, or even any relationship in general. So it allows for a lot more skill usage. Most people can actually reason about a situation, but very few people can actually

reason about the category of something and what instances it belongs to. Abstract thinking itself is usually what separates genuinely deep thinkers from people who are just well informed. We can use Areki from Hyuka for example. Areki's trait isn't that he solves mysteries very

well, but he can understand and use the underlying logic of one situation and apply it to something completely different. So a good way to improve this as it is very confusing on how one would go about this, is by looking for repetitive

structures across unrelated domains. You can do this very effectively by understanding symbols and understanding symbols better. Understanding how those symbols apply across different domains specifically. A pattern that only works in one domain is not an abstraction, but when you can

move that pattern and those principles across different domains, you know you're doing it correctly.

One of the best things I like to do is watch or read any type of media or fiction and whatever it is that I watch, there's something that I can apply to my own life or transferring the ideas or concepts to things within

your own life. It's a very simple but fun way to apply and train it.

Also, reading books that are very symbolic and metaphorical, it's very good. Another way to improve abstract thinking is to practice defining things before actually describing them. Try to define whatever you explain and the principle of it before the example. If you can't define

something without an example, you haven't really grasped the abstraction yet. You're only understanding the time that it occurred. So to put it simply, right? Because this may be a little bit more confusing than critical thinking. So we have an instance which is mirrored

to an actual principle. The principle is like the overarching thing, it's like the umbrella.

And then within that umbrella you have tons of principles. situations, specific things. So what you want to understand is that umbrella. You just want to understand the umbrella. And then once you understand that, you can move that into other areas. All right, now

let's get into applicative thinking. Applicative thinking is the opposite of abstract. It's the ability to use that umbrella or the general principles down to specific things. So it's literally the opposite of abstractions. Applying a framework to a new situation So, it's essentially the

transfer of learning. It's what allows principles in one domain to be usable in another domain as a tool. Like you may have noticed, applicative and abstract thinking work together as a pair. So, you can't really have one without the other. Now, think about

the umbrella that we mentioned earlier. You're going to have to use that and then turn it into actual instantations or situations. I'd say this is what separates people who are good in school and then people who are good in life. Because you can

see like there's a huge difference and nuance between people who can study all day and get straight A's and then you know you have people who are just generally all around good. I think this is like the main separation. So someone can understand

a concept in school or on a test where the situation or the question is designed to match what they learned but still be unable to recognize the concept in real life or when they're in a messy real-world situation with absolutely no labels attached

to actual occurrence. So it's not telling you what you're supposed to do. So you can study material all you want, but without applicative thinking, you can't utilize it completely in other situations. I observe the same thing in people who read extensively on topics.

Like, they study for hours, but they can't actually use any of it. It's like keeping knowledge in a storage system, but it can never enter your usable items or like your hotbar, you know? Like, for example, in Minecraft, like you have it in

your chest. I know it sounds dumb, but it's a good analogy. So you keep it in your chest. And then you never bring it to your actual inventory. You can never use it. So for outsmarting, it's important because if your applicative thinking is

really weak, you'll always underperform, even if you're a genius in like the concepts that you're studying. So let's say you can study this video all day. I think without applicative thinking, you can't really apply it to any situation. Theoretically, without applicative, because everyone

has some sort of intuitive method that they do this with. But this is more the conscious mode. So, I understand how this may be a bit confusing to improve on, but when you're learning any principle, force yourself to name a situation in your

own life where the specific information that you're learning can be applied, an actual situation that you're in. Another thing is treating every new situation as a problem to search information for. So ask yourself what you already know that can be applied. You need

to recall all the old info that you have. The reason I use the inventory example like a video game is because it's very, very similar to that. And you need to be able to think of items or like these specific instances that this

can be applied to. So if you're going to build a house, you're going to need a specific array of items. And then those items can't be separated from you.

You have to go look for them. So being able to have like, you know, a good inventory. intermission or a good lucidance between those unconscious or stored items in your mind between what you need to use. So psychologically, the best thing to develop

is the lucidant archetype. And in the next few videos, I'll probably go into archetypes more, but it's basically the archetype that allows you to transfer information from your unconscious to your conscious and then vice versa. So before we go any further, I know

I've given you a lot of information and a lot of practical information to improving these categories, but I know that none of you will actually remember it. So the best thing I recommend is analyzing in your own life which form of thinking you

could improve the most and then focus on training that one specific instance until it becomes an actual habit. Once you develop the habit of applying it, then you can move on to the next one, one by one. Feel free to revisit the video

as much as you need and write down all the methods, but when you actually want to improve, just keep going back to those notes and keep revisiting what you need to actually focus on. So I'd say like every month or every week, focus

on one specific thing. and use all the practices over and over again until they become an unconscious habit. That's how you ingrain things in your mind. It usually takes a couple weeks for it to actually become part of you or identical to your

unconscious behavior. But once you get that down, you'll know it and then you can move forward from there. Alright, so now we're getting into systematic thinking, which is the methodic movement throughout problems. So when people intuitively grasp what thinking is, this is usually

what they think of. This is what we use for any task where there are huge stakes on the line and you understand the structure of a problem. And when I say the structure of a problem, it's very important because systematic thinking isn't for

problems where you're searching for the right approach. It's for problems where the approach is already understood. It's already known and there's already a procedure that's what makes it systematic.

So the question that we're asking here with systematic thinking is whether or not you'll follow the procedure without dropping steps under pressure, fatigue or boredom. So if you need an example, surgery, I'd say is probably one of the best ones. So the cost

of failure in surgery is extreme. Like literally you could kill someone and a surgeon doesn't need to create a new approach mid operation. But what kills people is missing a step or doing things in a wrong order. You might say, all right, that's

a very specific example. I'm not going to be a surgeon. So it doesn't really matter to me, but you can see lower stakes of this every day. Things like following recipes or following your routine. You can plan and create strategies, routines, or procedures

all you want, but if you can't follow the routines you make for yourself, it's all kind of useless, especially if you cannot execute anything. So you can have excellent critical thinking, clear plans and strong grasp for principles, but you can still fail

completely if you literally just can't execute it. Like let's say I prepare a whole speech and then I get on stage and I can't follow through. It's very poor systematic thinking. That's kind of a more nuanced example. It's not very proper. I'd say

like a routine, like a workout routine. You just end up getting lazy and not doing it. It's That's why it could really be harmful if you have poor systematic thinking. You'll just end up getting nowhere. So a great example of this in SCD

is Fukunaga from Liar Game. All Fukunaga had to do in the minority rule was vote yes with the rest of the people that were there. And the minority would have been theirs because Akiyama had already voted no. This is why pressure testing against

yourself is extremely important, because without the pressure, this would have been very easy. Without an introduced variable of psychological interference, the decision of voting no I mean voting yes, sorry, would have been really simple. People don't realize how much following through is valued

and a big reason why adversity capacity is working in tandem with systematic thinking. So for improving systematic thinking, have a clear definitive plan before you do anything that requires a plan. I can't really give you much advice to improve here because most of

it's psychological. So things like being lazy, overconfident, or impatient is usually what messes you up. And those are just things in your psyche that you have to balance. Again, this is more with archetypes and understanding the nature of yourself. But for things like,

let's say, being impatient, I'd say just force yourself every day to go outside and do literally nothing. This will balance out your need to do stuff in your drive.

Or for patience, that's that. And then for overconfidence, taking time to be grateful for things is very humbling and you know, actually being objective with your own analysis.

So for adding pressure, though, it's a little bit different because you can try doing your routines and plans with negative circumstances, for example, fatigue, tiredness and things like that.

Adding pressure on purpose. Even the competitions that we host are very good for that because you can pressure test and there's actual stakes on the line because you're competing against other people and there's things to lose. So you can actually get a gauge

for how good am I under pressure like this. So when the procedure is more difficult to carry out, it trains discipline, which is also like a muscle. That's very important for us. So the more discipline that you have, the more that you get

adjusted to these things, the easier it'll be. Although people do tend to have nature and like their own nature. is very reflective about the things that they can carry out. For example, a lot of people, it's not in their nature to actually be

a surgeon because of how precise it is. Now, obviously, with enough dedication and work, you can obviously achieve that. But some people find it easier. For example, whether you have a better morning routine or a better night routine, it just depends on the

way that your mind actually works. And people can be different. Like you don't have to, you know, do all this 4am self-improvement stuff in order to train that. Next subcategory is associative thinking. Associative thinking is the spontaneous linking of one idea to another

along channels of similarity or contiguity. It's a fast mode of thinking. It's mostly unconscious.

It provides the raw material that the other categories of thinking also provide. Think of it like a more intuitive process. And the intuition brings you ideas and feelings, and then you refine those feelings and ideas with the rest of the more

conscious modes. This is probably going to be the weirdest one to all of you, especially of you who have issues channeling emotions and using unconscious faculties. All the categories we've covered so far have been effortful, and they have been conscious modes. You choose

to use them, but associated thinking just operates on the background. You know when everyone says the idea arrived in a shower, on a walk, or right before falling asleep?

It's because you stopped consciously working, and you aren't directing your conscious faculty to anything so your unconscious has more of an opportunity to roam freely. You can also see when it's missing very easily, which is actually pretty funny. Usually the people who are

the most disciplined and the most logical have issues with this one or any other unconscious mode because everything they do is mechanical, lacking the creativity or ideas that are new. So for our second exercise, I'm going to give you 60 seconds and you

have to write as many associations as possible. There's no right answer, I just want you to generate as many as possible. I'm going to ask a question, so once I do, you can pause the video. Ready? So what does a library have in

common with a graveyard? You can pause now. The point isn't to have quality of connections, but how far the associations go from the obvious ones. Associative thinking matters because without it, the other four categories have nothing new, per se, to work on. There

is no unconscious generation. The rest just refine the material that already exists, but they can never refine newer original material. So the ones who lack this are usually reusing existing strategies, which makes it hard to innovate problems that have no existing solutions.

Now, I'd say every problem has solutions to it, multiple solutions. So it's not that horrible, but adding associative thinking can be very beneficial for finding new angles to approach from as well. So you're going to notice I'm going

to start to use conscious and unconscious a little bit more. This is where we're going to start fleshing out the idea. So think of conscious like you're awake and you're giving form to things like you're actually thinking about it. Unconscious is not what

you're conscious of. So unconscious is things that you do in the background or like you're not aware of. So like sleeping is unconscious. completely unconscious because you are not aware of what's going on when you're sleeping now there's arguments saying that sleeping is

conscious but that's a little bit from later so we're going to go ahead with that assumption just think conscious equals um awareness and that you're actually doing it you're actually it's actually in your mind so the next one is convergent thinking Convergent

thinking is the ability to turn narrow fields of possibilities into a single answer. It's what classic intelligence usually measures. I want you to understand the actual use before anything else. Convergent thinking doesn't create options like the other modes do, but it gets rid

of options. If I give you a wide range of possible answers, paths, interpretations, convergent thinking is what you would use to filter that field so there is only one answer that works. It's the most common you probably are familiar with because standardized testing

is built around almost this entire category and is why I said earlier that it's what classical intelligence usually measures. A multiple choice question with only one correct answer is pure convergent thinking. This category is also used to anyone who has made a final

decision after considering several options. I'm not going to really elaborate further on this one because it's pretty self-explanatory with those examples. You're just taking a large variety of options and then turning into one or less. It's very important in outsmarting because it

allows you to actually arrive at conclusions and decisions. If someone had no convergent thinking, hypothetically of course, because genuinely it's impossible to not have convergent thinking, they literally could not make a choice. So for improving it, I'd say setting decision deadlines on purpose

as convergent thinking gets weaker the longer a decision is open for. Because having an open field of options always feels more comfortable and safer than having to commit to anything. Building explicit elimination criteria is also good because you can decide in advance

what disqualifies an option. This is very useful because psychological factors like laziness might come into play later. So if you can make the choice when you're thinking properly, three of those variables It leaves more sound and rational choices. For actual practice, use

timed single-answer problems. The exact format standardized tests use. That's really it. Most of you already do it, so you should be decent. Just be conscious and active the next time you take tests. Now, divergent thinking is the opposite of convergent

thinking. Divergent thinking is generating multiple possibilities from a single starting point. It's like the reverse. We can measure it along four different areas: fluency, quantity, flexibility, and range. This is the most useful skill in brainstorming. For example, you're given

a prompt and asked to generate ideas. When you have bad divergent thinking or poor divergent thinking, You can produce like one to two mid to low tier ideas, but someone who is proficient can produce a large array of good quality ideas. And

most importantly, the categories can be nuanced and span across different areas. That's what we mean with range. I want to focus a bit more on this category because it's usually very underrated. And I'd say it's one of the most useful practically. A lot

of people don't take time to use divergent thinking because they're operating too consciously. And as you guessed it, yes, this category is more unconscious and receptive in nature. There's a lot of variables that people use to excuse this, for example, being pressured from

time. It forces you to arrive at the most workable idea. But realistically, people waste most of their time and generating proficient ideas can save way more time and lead you to higher states of success. There's also factors like evaluation anxiety, which is the

fear that an idea will be judged before it's even made. So you unconsciously repress the ideas that you're trying to come up with, and then you only stick to one. So I'd encourage you to revisit if you are in any way limiting yourself

from thinking more freely. This advice can really help with associative thinking as well. This category, like I mentioned earlier, feeds convergent thinking. And I can have excellent judgment in narrowing options, which is convergent, but that judgment only matters if there's something worth judging

at all. Without strong divergent generation, the entire process is simply confined to working with a small set of ideas, which is very harmful to your own ability and your overall intelligence. For improving this, I recommend doing unconscious activity. It sounds ridiculous, I know.

But this can greatly help increase all your unconscious faculties. So things like drawing, going for a walk, and meditating are all more unconscious dominant, And by doing them frequently, it can be very good for balancing your psyche if you are conscious dominated. For

people who are unconscious dominated, you probably have an easier time with this, but I'll give you some other ideas on how you can improve. Setting a fixed period where you can generate ideas. And the only goal of that time is to produce ideas

is very useful, especially for separating judgment. Therefore, you won't have the restriction or the anxiety of having ideas being judged under pressure. Going on walks can also help a lot. It's usually what I do. I go on like a walk without my phone

or anything because I don't want to put my attention onto anything. I just want to roam freely. Think of it like energy just circulating, just going wherever. And especially if you leave your phone and only bring a journal. So bringing a journal is

very important for noting down those ideas. So now we have lateral thinking. Lateral thinking is moving away from the main problem itself and seeking solutions in adjacent or unrelated domains. So in a gist, just finding creative solutions outside of

the puzzle. Lateral thinking operates outside of the framing and challenges the question entirely. This is important to what we covered already because take for example divergent thinking.

It expands the field of options, but lateral thinking questions whether you're in the right field to begin with. If I asked you a question and you generate 50 answers, that's great, but what if the question I asked you was simply to change your

framing or perception and the actual answer was outside of it? A great example is now from Liar Game. Being able to find the answer of the entire puzzle of the Liar Game itself. It wasn't to beat your opponents, but to beat the corporation

as it was a scheme for them to make money. Like all the passes or like the folds would go to the actual corporation. This category is specifically important for non-incremental solutions. So solutions that don't have anything to do with what already exists. And

outsmarting usually see this happen whenever someone plays psychology with the constraints that they have to believe to be imposed, only for another person to outsmart them because they're outside of the perception of that constraint the entire time. Now it's a bit different because

she tells everyone about the scheme that the Liar Game Corporation is happening. But Akiyama usually keeps the framing hidden. And at the last moment, he reveals that he's playing a completely different game than everyone else. For example, in the contraband arc with his

plan to transfer the ATM's money instead of smuggling like everyone else was doing. I'm going to give you the third exercise now. So pause the video and try to figure it out. a man walks into a restaurant and orders mushroom soup he takes

one sip goes home and kills himself why pause the video before i give the answer and think about it so most people get focused on the soup and the framing of the food but it's completely uncorrelated the right answer is that the man

couldn't bear the feeling of having his wife himself deceased so he took his own life any right answer would be the one that didn't focus on the food Using this example, we can see how lateral thinking actually works. We just have to remove

the framing of the food and create new solutions ourselves. So this is usually what happens. People just throw in these variables and they alter your perception of the entire question. So usually to improve this ability is actually figuring out the framing first and

then moving away from it. Questions like what assumptions are inside of this way the problem is created is very useful. The framing that was not needed was the soup.

Another good practice is recalling domains where this problem has already been solved. Things like adjacent niches, not your own niche. So, for example, like a YouTube, if you're trying to make a fitness channel, let's say, and looking how to make good thumbnails. You

can go to your psychology channel and use the thumbnail style that works and apply that thumbnail style to your niche. Just change around like the images and the words, but the whole structure of it can be moved around. And it sounds like abstract

thinking, right? They're very similar, but it helps you find new scenarios by looking outside of your framing. Finally, you can also invert the constraints. So for example, the soup problem again, the constraint was a soup. As a problem could exist without the soup

and exist without the constraint, which removes the obstacles from blocking the goalpost, but it doesn't really move the goalpost itself. All right, the last category or the last subcategory is holistic thinking. Holistic thinking is the ability to perceive a system as a

whole with attention to the relations and emergent properties that analytic decomposition usually misses. Analysis, which is a different category, breaks the system into its parts and understands each part individually. Holistic thinking does the opposite of that, which is restoring the parts to a

working integration and asks you what happens between and within them. The most important part here to note is that the parts have emergent properties. Emergent properties are something that systems produce together, but the parts of the system cannot produce that by themselves. For

example, let's take water or H2O. Neither hydrogen or oxygen, which both are used to create water or H2O, neither of those are wet, but water is wet itself. It's a property of the relationship within the system. so if your mind is hyperfixated

on a part like hydrogen a mind can only arrive at it not being wet but holistic thinking operates on the level of water itself people fail this most commonly in organizations so a company for example bringing consultants to fix performance problems the consultants

analyze each department individually but the real issue is i'll allow you to guess Yes, the relationship between the departments. The same issue comes up in your own personal decisions. Someone optimizes all facets of their life. So things like their sleep, their diet,

their exercise, and even their work schedule, but it still feels off. But the reason it is because all of it works together. So the conflict lies in the entire system together. For this specifically, it's a bit harder to understand consciously, as it's more

of an intuitive grasp around relationships, but try mapping relationships themselves before the conclusions. When I get into any system, before I evaluate a single part, I look at what connects to what. Every piece and every dependency is important, as the discipline of mapping

an analysis subcategory forces you to see a structure before you go into its individual properties. So in our psychology games, this looks like mapping the entire game and the situation first before going into profiling opponents, identifying who's lying, who's stronger and who's a

threat. All this stuff comes after the situation. Because those properties don't matter until you understand the game itself. If you've noticed, there's a process which you use each category of thinking, like which I use first, which was used after. And there's different steps

for each person. And it looks completely different for each person. So I cannot prescribe you a way or a method to go about this. Like what should I use first? Should I critical think first? Or yeah, that's not a thing. It's more of

you're blending all them together and then fix it. sing on what works for you and focusing on that one thing and then going step by step. Sometimes you may need to skip one entirely. Sometimes you just do it unconsciously. But what matters is

that you take all your notes, analyze your own ability and ask what you need to move onto the top of the priority list before you actually take that action.

So now I'm going to go a bit into the unconscious aspects, improvement, and improving everything in general since we already covered every subcategory. So, Carl Jung, a very famous psychologist, states that people are naturally inclined toward leaning on one of the four psychological

types. When he says thinking, it refers to the conscious dominant side along with sensation.

But some people also fall under a more intuitive unconscious way of being. You can observe this in patterns within yourself. Do you find it easier to feel things or do you find it easier to be logical? There are different ways and more ways

of this and grasping the truth within yourself. So I implore you to do more research. I'll be making a video covering the two modes, so make sure to stay tuned for that. So I already talked about a bit what consciousness means, but There's

different modes of thinking. And then we go back to the thinking fast and slow example, because that's a whole book on itself. I recommend reading it. It's pretty good if you want and you have time. But it's basically about a deeper way of

thinking. And I'd say that deeper way of thinking, the second or thinking slow is more conscious because you're actually using your energy to think. Now thinking fast is more of the intuitive style, the more unconscious style, because you're picking up patterns, things that

are ingrained within your unconscious mind. And as you get more experience and you remove limitations, for example, like getting proper sleep, getting a proper diet, all those things remove limitations on your own abilities. So usually when I tell people to work out, they

don't really know why they're working out besides to see like getting a good physique.

Okay, but what does that really provide? Because we can literally we have tools for everything. There's not really a time where we're going to need to have strong muscles or anything like that, except for like once in a blue moon, you know? So

what people, I say, really benefit out of working out is improving their cognitive abilities, which is literally the entire superpower of humans. And not only does it improve your FSIQ simply by, well, I wouldn't say improve. I would say it removes limitations because

you're weaker in a way. when you're not working out, getting proper food, getting proper sleep, all those things. So working out is extremely important for that. So is all the other things I mentioned. But as we're thinking slow in

particular, conscious activity, yes, it's very important. So optimizing all areas of your life is very important for just general improvement. For improving everything in general, I said also analyze what you're weakest in. You won't really grasp it until you have the

high stakes and life teaches you the lesson. You'll start to realize that each mode comes up when you are just doing things in real life and you can actually name it. So when you're taking a test in school, you can be like, oh,

this is convergent thinking. Now, obviously, you're not going to need to do that all the time. It's going to be like ridiculous and a waste of time. you're going to start to grasp the way that you're using things. And then when you feel

like you're falling behind, you now have this guide to help point you in the right direction. And then you can understand what you're doing wrong and focus on that category. You can study and do practices at home all you want. But if you're

in a scenario where you're using it With something to lose, it won't really be integrated. And contrary to popular belief, a lot of games are really good for testing and improving your thinking, especially if you're playing the games actively, not passively. So there's

a big difference between those things. When you're doing something actively, you're conscious in it.

You're not just consuming it. So think about like... like a first-person shooter game when you're playing it actively you're analyzing like everything you're using your thinking abilities to grasp positioning all that stuff when you're playing it unconsciously and passively you're just being fed

information and you're not really you know consciously thinking about those things and that's when a lot of people waste time on games So think of how the macro decisions and micro decisions within all aspects interact. Calling out each area and focusing on how

you improve that area. You can use abstract thinking to bring these principles into other areas of your life as well. A lot of games are really good time on games. That's really all. Thank you guys for watching this video. It's probably been our

most ambitious project so far. Our longest video. And we're very grateful for you sticking around. The next videos we'll be covering in the beginning of semester one. So make sure you join PowerIQ before we get started. If you like the video, make sure

to subscribe and comment. We'll see you next time. It's probably been our most ambitious...

Positioning, all that stuff. The next videos we'll be covering... Make sure you join PowerIQ.