Passion is no bad thing but letting the emotions run wild will lead to at least less success if not failure. Focusing on the result may mean you never get the result you want. Luckily we have both a large cortex and also many generations of people who have used this part of the brain to observe, think and analyse. So that real patterns rather than seeing what we want to see whether it’s there or not has been passed down. But there is a catch humans have the emotional part of the brain with quicker reactions and the emotions. This has it’s place but it can interfere or stop the rational bit doing it’s part without some rational thought. So here are some more traps we fall into that need thought in the cold light of day to avoid, not hope for in the middle of action.

a) Outcome bias

The result is used to justify or criticise decisions ignoring other factors and chance.

It is so easy to take a result on face value and have no real understanding of actual ability of performance. There are so many variables that can effect results. To just believe that the best will prevail, may be good for longer or multiple events but not for one off events. The glamour of the cup (knock out) can lead to all sorts of results that only represents that game or event, not necessarily giving a clue to future or other events. Sometimes trophies are won by the only one to turn up, or by the son of the organiser. At the elite levels injury, refereeing and many other factors can push the result a long way let alone affecting the small differences between closely matched opponents. Results do count of course but must be put in context, not to look for excuses but real factors. The long term approach is to look for steady improvement and hitting smaller targets which if met should lead to better performance and larger results. As previously mentioned the beginner will need an experienced, objective eye for this. Even the best will need help to get passed the mist that emotion and action can produce. In action adrenaline is effecting the brain and perception as can many other factors. There is a need to get support and/or learn yourself to work out the real or imaginary.

b) Overconfidence bias

Common with beginners with the difference from what is known and what thought of as known or as knowledge

Here is the first and a foundational situation where misunderstanding can occur. A coach or organiser needs to set up events, training and the people to get a simpler or explained situation. Early wins or losses can guide perceptions and beliefs to learned helplessness or over confidence. Recognition that one is a beginner is needed to appreciate the reality of a success (and a failure). For overconfidence from too easy a task will mislead. An overview of progression is useful but can also be daunting.

c) Risk compensation or Peltzman effect.

We adjust our behaviour in relation to the perceived risk. Protective equipment causes a change in behaviour where we put it on and then go crazy making it more likely to have accidents maybe even increasing risks. The risk compensation bias is observed in contact sports like rugby and ice hockey. New rules for player action have had to be implemented only after it was observed that players acted more violently with each other when they had their protective equipment on. Some safe conditions encourage change of technique and strategy. This needs some control as when the equipment is removed people may make dangerous choices. A historic example is boxing where head punches can easily break the hand. Gloves originally were to protect the hand for training and for posh people who fell for the glamour and wanted to share it. Later head protection has been found to increase head trauma with increased shaking of the brain.

d) Halo Bias

Seeing a person who shows ability in one thing to be good at more or every thing. The classic mistake made is that the best players will make the best coaches. People see a person and perceive greater capabilities than they can actually see evidence of. When this distorted perception later sees failure then an exaggerated presumption of negative traits may happen. We may also misjudge people based on race, size or appearance. People who are attractive are presumed to be more capable as do those that ‘look right’. We see one thing and presume more things as part of a stereotype or idea of how things are.

So make a list of the most successful coaches and see how many performed themselves at the very top. A few years ago a statistician analysed American sports and debunked a number of myths of which players produced the best for a team, now many teams use the data to select players. The nerd was ignored for well forever till someone with money used the results and got a better performing team. We all really need that outside view above the emotional cloud of perception, where these bias traps are best avoided.

Again actual observation, thought and analyse with explanation needs to be included to lesson these biases. Responding to actual events and opposition rather than guessed ideas of events and the opposition.

Some Human Bias Part 1

Sometimes beauty is in purity and precision. Sports can offer this. The clear distinction between success and failure, or time, or height. Sports based on fitness to the extreme mostly show the fastest or highest. Actually what really happens is the differences between first place and last can be minute. Every difference has impact and small differences can be the difference between first and last. Much care has to be taken to distinguish the real differences in performance. So many variables exist and the result quite often tells you little apart from a comparison of a sum of differences. Team sports can have more obvious variables that contribute to performance and results. The problem comes where a good result can come from a poor performance and a good performance can have a poor result. Analysis is needed but there are many pitfalls. Of course safe play and experimentation is to be encouraged, but some thought is useful too.

I have talked about many attributions that people have that are not what they believe them to be. Talent is a small part of results and success when compared to effort and preparation. Perception for many is the other way round. People believe they have or do not have talent and may act based on the perceptions. ‘Talented’ people do not practice because they think they will win naturally and people who are ‘untalented’ stop participating. Both groups have inadequate information to make a judgement close to reality.

The common attribution aspect (attribution theory) is that people tend to attribute success to themselves and failure to outside factors (Self serving bias). Now both situations are effected by inside and outside. Two perspectives are needed one is what really happened, this is not something humans can get perfect, only improve their understanding and actions. Understanding controllable factors and uncontrollable or factors outside of your control. If you let factors outside of your control effect you too much (especially emotionally) it is a waste as you can do nothing about it. This leads to the second point where you need to find the best approach for you to get what you want. Belief that you can make it is important, but a reality check to choose your goals with care is needed. This is where coaches are most needed having a more objective idea of what is possible and realistic and then helping them achieve their goal. Personal development needs expansion of knowledge of reality of your environment, yourself and others. Acknowledge factors you cannot effect and see if what you can do to mitigate their effects, but the focus must be on positively improving yourself in areas you can effect to improve yourself and performance. Use knowledge not guess work followed with believing you did not just guess. Hard work on appropriate tasks is more effective than talent or guessing.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is another common misjudgement when judging your own abilities and performance you think your better than you are mainly because you do not know. Although it may protect the ego it gets in the way of analysis and real data on performance, stopping reasoned truth finding so knowing how to improve cannot happen. It may also link to the ‘experts’ on the sidelines and pubs. This is the stage where a coach and guidance is needed. Beginners; children and adults attempt skills beyond them where they attempt advanced skills they have seen off the TV without the basic skill levels and tactics and with much lower odds of success. Experts have the opposite problem as they understand better what they cannot do and underestimate what they can do (imposter syndrome). It is really difficult to assess your own ability and those that get a good expert (outside) opinion stand the best chance. Either trusting them or getting a personal education to improve these abilities. Understanding others ability can be distorted but sometimes easier. When you are completely destroyed by a better performer it appears clear, but here there may be other factors causing an unbalanced situation. People with Autism are good at being precise relative to absolutes but ‘relative to others’ becomes a problem. Some experts get stuck in the bubble around higher level performers which is a high standard not understanding the wider picture.

More is better is a regular trap where it worked once so it will work again. Not spotting the changed circumstances. Winning at beginner level is different to intermediate and different again at expert level. Getting lucky can win at lower skill levels but against higher performers needs a lot more than luck. Many find It hard to realise that their methods no longer (or have never) worked and need to change to progress. The Sunk Cost fallacy is where it is hard to give up once you have invested a lot of time, money and effort but then when it is not working need to change. Just trying the same thing over and over again is a sign of madness especially when expecting a different result. Many times success is a big barrier to future success, when false confidence is gained by a good result, where factors such as opponent illness or absence means less people to beat. The vagaries of competition can distort perceptions of performance and abilities.

A big problem for the ego is loss aversion where people give more value to avoiding loss. The fear of this can paralyse action or steer action to a safe position. Nobody wins all the time, loss is a key part of progress when approached well. Loss is where you can really learn where the lesson is often much clearer than the lessons of victory or success. By being too careful we often miss lessons and slow or stop our progress. Taking sufficient risk for some losses and failure. A realistic analysis of non success is needed to make success more likely in the future. This is an approach that needs for some to be a course of education. Others have no problem. Confidence and perceptions of others have big effects and supportive environments are needed. You must play the long term game and play the odds to get long term results. The end result needs to be moved towards and obstacles seen as problems to solve, not the end of the world. The white belt does not want to lose but if they are going to be black belt in few years and much better, a small loss now is nothing. Others are risk takers who gamble but not with good odds they need to learn true odds and the benefits and costs along the way.

The standard issue at all levels is the failure of analysis. We are biased and make mistakes because of it. In some areas of life we have been replaced by machines with only the programmers and operators bias.

The Right Amount Not Too Much and Not Too Little. Then do it Right!

It is close to the Pareto principle or 80/20 rule that the distribution of many things follow a pattern where there is a majority and a minority. In exercise it is clear where 90% do not exercise sufficiently for good health and 90% of those that do exercise do it so bad they again are not in good health! It is a similar pattern in many areas in health and other behaviours. The problem is when the better part is done by the minority.

A basic for health is to be active, where many activities of life have been superseded including work and transport and replaced by inactivity tasks instead. One task for society is to increase activity levels in general. Exercise is not the only means to do this but a good one with many lessons for other activities. A classic exerciser’s error is to do too much, whether too many different things or too much of one thing. Over-training has got some to hospital, many to stop training, many injuries and much under-performance. They do so much they achieve less. Just as a baby over reaches as they learn about themselves and their environment, children and adults over reach and experience the consequences.

So once a sensible amount of activity is achieved (by increasing or decreasing) then the quality of exercise needs to be addressed. Doing exercise so that it is healthy and performance enhancing. Most sports and activities have their dangers. Swimming is a good exercise method and life skill. In the USA more people die in backyard swimming pools than from guns! Swimming rarely injures or kills but safety of the apparatus is key. Running is the simplest and most common method and yet surveys constantly find injury rates above 50% and up to 90% (I would suggest the high end as many will not run for a year as injury stops them running.). Yes more than half of people who run get injured running in any year. Surveys of Martial arts students have injury rates of 4 a year, now if the training is to cope with violence then the likelihood of violence needs to be assessed. In the UK the chance of violent crime is about once in every 120 years. Is it acceptable to get injured 4 times a year for a 1 in 120 year event. In team sports injury rates usually contain a third of injuries due to foul play, where someone is not playing to the rules and someone is not keeping the games within the rules and coaches and parents may also encourage or not enforce the safety rules. Many sports are now and will be increasingly under pressure concerning head injuries. Many long term implications from chronic injury in contact sports as well as immediate risk in major immediate injuries will raise concerns. Finding a balance between activity and risk rather than ban or restrict to unhealthy levels needs consideration. In areas where cycle helmets are compulsory the cycling rates drop comparing cycle head injury rates and Heart attack rates need to be balanced.

Reducing injury and increasing participation rates are essential to make exercise and sport healthy. Right at the beginning with children correct technique and movement patterns need to be ingrained. Kelly Starrett starts with the squat for helping adults to avoid injury (health) and increase performance (optimal). First he gets you to see the foot position – line the knees with the foot in the correct position not duck feet (no ducks are not actually that stupid but the name sticks). The feet positions affect the knees which carry on up the chain effecting and injuring everywhere. The basic movement patterns are targeted as the squat will help in many movements in many sports and activities. The other joints need to be in position for every movement. These need to be taught and encouraged early so that problems do not appear later. Many runners do this they have the feet in a bad position and have repeated forces shocking up the body till it ‘cana take any more’. At the other end the head pulls the body out of position with the same chained effects. Shoulder position for over head and all joints need to be aligned. How this is learned either encouragement or biomechanics or allowing chi or prana to flow does not matter.

The best at anything are the best at the basics. Special forces solders are the best at basic soldering. The highest maths prodigies get their basic maths right. Exercise is the same doing the most important things every day is a good approach but also with good technique. Many attempt to train the advanced moves and skills without good basics and errors can be catastrophic. The general pattern is that practising the basics may not be the most excising but as you get fewer injuries you train more and get to higher levels. The enjoyment of improved abilities and less pain over entertaining fantasy is good when you experience it and feel the benefits.

Many people rush their training trying to achieve super human abilities too quickly. The body responds to overload but at it’s own pace the tissues (including the brain) develop at the pace they will, not to an imagined pace. Finding the right amount of training and then doing it will develop physical abilities and skills consistently. Being aware of the body and when you can do some more or must slow down will get better results in the long term and I mean longer than a few weeks. The best have 10 years training with their talent so that’s how long it takes for those levels. Correct training is also the correct methods for you purpose or goals.

Discovering what is enough is an achievement. For the Olympics a champion needs to qualify, and then meet the needs of the competition. This may be just being in the top 2 in the rounds and then first in the final. Finishing first every time is not required. In fact finishing first or over dominating an opponent may use too much energy making the later rounds too hard. A similar pattern is in flexibility where being too flexible can lead to joint instability. Too much time developing strength or any one element may get in the way of achieving whats needed in other elements. A questions is: Do I need to be more flexible? The answer may well be yes, or not at the moment or no. Time may be needed for the need to be there or for the body to adapt. Too early can lead to problems as well as too late.

These examples of balance of trying to do the right amount at the right time is a complicated skill of understanding let alone doing. It is true in the whole of life as in sport where over emphasis of one element or of the now can harm future performance levels. Daley Thompson used the motivation of today is a day off so if I train a small session I will have an advantage over my great rival. Then this grows to be well my rival will train today and therefore I will train twice. This mission creep is an easy trap, even Olympic greats fall for it. It hard to see that the 2 time Olympic gold medalist could of done better. Others do not get to that level before too much ends dreams. So work out your needs and plan to learn the right way to prepare and the right amount that can be sustained for the time you need to do it. Get the basics correct before you move on to the advanced elements how ever cool they look. For the vast majority exercise will basically be the basics performed well, to gain health, pain free and comfortable movement and realise some potential. Paving the way to other things in life.

Sport and Exercise for the Long Term.

In the game of football it is easy and common to play head down looking at what your feet and the ball are doing. The obvious disadvantage of this is not knowing where you are going to pass as your not looking up and seeing the rest of the game. Football is a team game and passing is the key team skill for success. This short term head down approach is common not just in children. In the midst of action and before, looking up and becoming aware of the next best move will lead to better performance over the long term. For people who never look up they just never know the possibilities.

Short term thinking and tactics are important and essential, but over dependence on them leads to lower performance over all and loss. Playing against head down players is easy if you have your head up and think. They become predictable even when they do not know they are as they are busy and unaware. It is a natural prejudice to not work for the long term, and the addiction of adrenaline and crisis distracts from awareness of opportunity. Short term is survival and provides short cuts away from stress. It does not though avoid future stress. Sport and exercise is no different than the rest of life where cognitive biases affect thinking and action. The emotions drive short term decisions and actions. They are traps of human minds (and all animal) but we have the ability (well some of us) to think ahead and plan. In Britain we are proud of the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ where the nations service men where supported by civilians in the hour of need. What this pride (emotion) misses is the idea of avoiding the Dunkirk type situation in the first place and achieving goals without digging deep unnecessarily. Long term thinking may aim for an easy effective life which is a bit theoretical, but it can make things easier leaving energy and time for more advanced goals.

There are many cognitive biases that people (including professionals) regularly fall pray too. Avoidance has to be actively pursued. Short term thinking and immediate desire do not come up with the goods especially if there is an opponent who has thought things through, or mother nature who can not be cheated.

As we do not analyse before, during or after most of the time we use other methods that we may think and say are analysis but are not. Attempting to become aware of what is really happening and what can actually happen is easily missed.

First is time. We want things now. Just as we buy things when we are tricked (even though we know it is probably a trap) into free offers or the middle priced offer (Yes! the expensive one is listed so we will buy the middle offer) and availability traps (no we do not have that one but we have this other one right now). One misjudgement easily made is Hyperbolic discounting where we take less now rather than waiting for more later. The process is good in a survival situation but limiting for development in the long term as we get less. This Temporal proximity is now not later. This delayed gratification ability is more common when children are not in stressful (survival) situations a lot, children need times of no stress to develop the skills of delaying for a better deal later.

In sport it is the drive for goal or the target even though the opponent is fully defending it. The longer term method is to keep good positions until there is a better opportunity. Professional sports change the rules to reduce this as it is not as entertaining. But it is more effective. Waiting or creating opportunities can be approached in many ways and simple methods often beat amateurs however hard they scramble head down.

Another disadvantage to the head down scrambling, battling approach is how physically and mentally draining and damaging it is. Constantly over stretching and operating in extreme positions means more energy sapping emotion and physical injuries from putting the body in positions it works badly. Finding the limits of muscle, ligaments and bones. Injuries reduce performance at the time but also reduce the training and preparation that can be done as well as permanent incapacity. Also resultant energy levels are down for the next game putting you at a disadvantage.

The short term exercise patterns have the same injury and energy risks and limiting effects, reducing actual performance and attainment. To stay healthy or attain high level standards takes years of preparation. Just playing has the injury and energy risk. Too hard a session effects the next session. The biological limit is how fast the body can adapt to what it is subjected too. If you over-train then it will not keep up and will break down. To get from a child to professional standards takes years. Rushing some parts will slow the progress down and could easily lead to an injury that ends the dream. A problem is some athletes do survive poorly managed programmes which covers up the actual potential they had and how much more could have achieved. The muscles take about 90 days to completely change cells. Doing an exercise for 10 days and then changing to a different exercise will not produce much long term effect. Much gains are lost with de-training where the body does not maintain abilities when other needs are felt. Long term chest strength developed with press ups would progress from simply getting to do a press up correctly and then training a progression (slightly harder exercise) for 6 - 8 weeks before changing to the next progression if the target performance has been achieved. Quicker progress will lead to a plateau in improvement and probably a stop in trying with disappointment. A coach would need with experience (theirs and others) to time the change to the next progression. Connective tissues take longer to replace (about 210 days) so needs longer to adapt to the strain (particularly resistance training) and can not be left behind when developing faster changing muscles. Bones do change as well at around 2 years. Developing stronger bones to withstand the stress of elite performance (and training) takes many years as of course does healing from injury. Take the time in preparation rather than not achieving or the common achievement of major injury. Mother nature can not be cheated. Steroids can accelerate the muscles but leave the connective tissue behind.

Tai chi has been called ‘patience boxing’ as the best is the one with the most patience. Some things just take how long they take. The long term plan needs this to be included, not buying the secret short cut as the secret is there is no short cut to higher levels.

Categorical Errors in Sport and Fitness.

I am going to discus some common thinking errors made everywhere but I am going to put them in a sports context. Knowing the common errors we all make by both not thinking and poor thinking that can cause massive difficulties, with these you may go in to the first stage of grief which is denial, but you are just human and many errors are part of the human condition rather than personal, the effects for you though are personal.

Making categorical errors is common in all areas of life but I will stick to my professional area for examples. It is mainly about the words different and same which sounds so simple. Sometimes there are areas where there are subtle differences but the mistake can be made even when there are large differences that is of course ‘not same’. Treating different things as the same often leads to problems and is incorrect. Categories can often be agreed or arbitrary for convenience rather than real world. Once the agreement is made or there is a real difference. It is common to blur and then eliminate the boundaries between different things.

As the Confusion quote:

A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve. If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately. What the superior man requires is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.

— Confucius, Analects, Book XIII, Chapter 3, verses 4-7, translated by James Legge

A clarity in language was identified thousands of years ago as a need for wisdom not just by Confucius but by Plato in Athens and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra who make similar observations.

In sport and fitness there is plenty of emotional input. The desire to do something or win is high. Wanting so bad you are fully prepared to believe any encouraging suggestion. This motivation to meet desires and results rather than actual achievement and actual performance is a constant trap that reduces real progress. The use of critical thinking is often missing due to the evolutionary factors to peoples perception. Early in life we attribute many things to luck/skill or ability/inability depending on the result. Perception is hard to influence after experience of perceived circumstance has given direction to our thought.

Science in sport is even ignored by high performers. To gain high performance or good levels of health, you have to do effective preparation and practice to get real results. Early real explanation and correction is needed. Differentiating what works and scientifically why and how. I will explain some terms and situations common to sport and fitness where I see systematic errors.

The first obvious error is incorrect technique. This though needs to be defined, feel free to argue the definitions but if your definitions are wrong it may hurt. Correct technique in sports is physics. The Biomechanics of the body rely on forces and the direction of these forces as they are applied in collaboration. Simple examples are swimming where the water offers greater resistance then air. If you hit water really hard with a flat hand it is a slap but if you make your hand very streamlined it will cut through with minimal resistance. Not hard and yet many people have technique that has resistance to the direction they want to travel and a subsequent small force to propel in the opposite direction. They often do the opposite they streamline the push or pull and resist the forward momentum. This happens physically and is a metaphor for all progress. Reduce resistance towards goal and maximise force to move towards it. The term squat for instance can be used for bad technical movement that likely produces injury. A good squat will follow good physics (mechanics) and be safe and have higher performance.

There are different parts of preparation and performance. The first mistake is jumping in with no preparation hoping natural talent will beat prepared opposition. Deliberate preparation to reduce resistance and increase movement towards your goal is needed. One word used in exercise is specificity where for example press ups improve press ups with some help to other actions, but have little benefit to actions that do not have an upper body press. Many people do the wrong exercises or programmes to get the desired results. The fashion for body building with weights has been misapplied and reduced potential and actual performance for many. Big muscles for body building do not help many sportspeople as the muscles get in the way and slow them down. That does not mean do not train with weights it means do it correctly for your needs towards your goal. Long distance athletes do not look like Body-builders and vice versa they may both train with weights. There are more subtle differences between Body-builders and strength athletes (Olympic weightlifting, power lifting) and Rugby. Here slight differences to the weight, sets and reps are needed for the different aims. Specific preparation for each event is needed and understanding the requirements of different sports and even health are often badly guessed. These categories are related to specific outcomes aligning them is vital.

Stage one is learning physical and mental skills. Evidence of the scientific variety pretty much backs up the general empirical and traditional ideas. ‘Healthy body, healthy mind’ holds water as do many other aphorisms. Learning is done best in a conducive environment with motivation towards learning. Simple carrot and stick motivation helps and the reduction of distractions (resistance), many social and cultural disablers appear with loud statement of perceptions of egos. There is an important category mistake the difference between performer and preparer. Being an excellent performer in your competitive group is no magic bullet for success in other conditions like coaching. Whether competitive or in helping others. The selfish dedication to beat those in front are pretty much opposite to those properties of effective helping (more selfless!). Separating learning of skills and tactics and conditioning and performance leads to clearer results. Learning is not performing and conditioning is not learning etcetera and setting each up deliberately and clearly rather than a mix of all where they interfere with each other.

I regularly see people wanting to learn and improve performance in competitive situations by competing only. Well the winner is the best prepared. Quite often the person with the biggest immediate advantages initially, but you need to prepare for higher levels of competition. Learning and development is not a competitive process even if the motivations are. As children, the best prepared is the larger, older child. Once a skill or tactic has been learned in a calm relaxed supportive manner then it can be slowly practised with increasing resistance. If you cannot perform a skill without pressure how do you hope to perform under intense pressure. A prepared opponent will not let you!

So stage one is learning, stage two is practice. Different stages but they do overlap so more able people sometimes skip stages or merge into each other. You need a good supporter (teacher/coach) to know who needs stage 1 and who can move quick to stage 2. The hard job for the teacher is not distinguishing actual ability and performances but dealing with the learners perception of ability and often parents perception as well. Some sports or activities who likely use this sort of progression are more closed sports where competition is often singular, where as more open sports like team sports or sports with a higher number of different skills can get stuck in an all in (lack of) method of training. The mistake is in open sports is insufficient learning and practice of foundation skills before immersion in competitive situations. The bigger child will probably want this most as they have the initial advantage and will probably win!

Another stage is training. Here skills already to appropriate levels of performance are practised in conditions closer to competition and under some pressure are worked on. Correct technique needs to be encouraged to reduce skill deterioration in over competitive situations.

The final stage is competition. It can contain learning, practice and training benefits, but is more about performance and then results. Lop sided competition of very able and low ability is not competition as the skills of the low side are insufficient leading only to scrappy survival battling detrimental to skill development for higher levels of performance. Early bad habits often limit eventual development and performance.

This set of stages is a set of categories and errors in distinguishing them and applying them result in lower performance. Sport has the advantage of clear results. Some people compete in things confidently in spite of never or only once succeeding rather than using the things that work most often. This categorising set is not set in stone but useful. This pattern of unclear categories and misunderstanding ‘same and difference’ is common in all areas of life. The errors in sport and fitness of bad technique, poor learning, unpractised and untrained and of course poor performance are common and resistant to change. Still with so many doing this it makes the few who don’t look good. So I’m off to learn some stuff then practice and train.

There are many areas and occasions where one thing is thought and acted on as if it’s one thing when it is another. A universal error is to treat an approximation as a fact. Let alone an approximation of an approximation, like in maths where a rounding up or down can be made in the right circumstance but then this rounding is used in another calculation with more rounding. The accuracy is a little off from the first rounding and is then magnified with the second rounding, vastly effecting accuracy. In sport there can be false belief created from not understanding the lack of accuracy and clarity of definition and purpose.

Other Metaphors and Analogies.

Metaphors and other literary devices (I’ll lazily call them all metaphors from now on) are just tools of the mind. Like any tool they need to be used with care at the appropriate time and place. Some are specific and others more general. The more general examples allude to principles and concepts of nature and can be useful in many circumstances. The best seem to be more than just tools but almost statements of fact and have of course been believed to be so. I have found the metaphors from the East very useful in many situations. They are quite useful as guides to how to think and approach problems but also how to live ones life. They tend to work together in combination where they describe the world from different perspectives but describe the same world. The Dao De Jing states that the Dao (way or universe perhaps) is un-knowable pointing out the limitations of Humans and their brain power and words. The power of metaphor is the ability to paint mental pictures which speak a thousand words! Many sayings and axioms give similar bang for the buck. I like the simplicity and yet depth of possibilities that sometimes grow. The Buddhist Koans are an example of short sayings or sentences that are stated and then come with the instruction now think about that for the rest of your life(s)!

A classic example particularly from Daoism (Taoism) is the water analogy. It takes the properties of water on earth, a daily experience for people and suggests ideas for understanding and action. It links to the natural way of nature (Dao) and how it works and how to work with it (Wu Wei). Of course you can go against nature and fight it, but victory can only be temporary. Like the idea of entropy from science where everything breaks down towards disorder. Before science started with thermodynamics. The unstoppable effects of water dominated life. It can be stopped for instance by a dam but you have to maintain the dam or the water will break it and one day you will stop maintaining enough and it will collapse! Temporary may be much longer than a human life but not much in the universal time. The practical advice from Daoism is to work with nature not resisting it’s forces. So perhaps if it is hard work it’s because you are going against nature and doing the wrong thing! Any achievement is still temporary (not necessarily wrong though).

It also suggests that to keep things a certain way, work will need to be done and the more complicated the more work to achieve and maintain. Perhaps the best ideas will be easier to achieve and maintain more in line with nature. Yin/Yang concepts are another staple of oriental thought and perspective that penetrate (just like water) everywhere, into every aspect of thought and action. Simple ideas of light and dark (it’s origin) help see that there is always both with shade in the day and moon shine and stars in the night. They are parts of a whole that cycles. This idea of changing balances aspects of the whole, rather than one thing and not another, but both that constantly changing. So Yin/Yang not Yin and/or Yang. So for thinking looking for the best balancing of aspects rather than extremes keeps closer to nature and easier to maintain as well as more effective. Avoiding the extra work to get diminishing returns.

Sometimes a balancing aspect or force is needed. We often keep doing one aspect as we are biased towards it getting caught in the trap of more is better. But the examples of combining Yin and Yang help with examples to actually get better results. The best swords have hard and soft elements to prevent stiff brittle steel or floppy soft iron. It’s the right amount not too much or too little that we look for. Sometimes we can alter what we do and sometimes we need others to balance us. I have used the example of a wall where Bricks (say yang) need Mortar (say yin) to come together to be most effective. Using these examples to look for other balancing aspects in all things becomes an aid to thinking and acting. Some people see a garden as the plants they plant and encourage to grow, but miss the taking away of plants they do not want to grow. Some people take away the unwanted the best and others add the best. The combination of both is greater than one on its own and has higher potential than one person who has balance themselves. These ideas can grow in complexity but the balance of aspects is always taken into account and gradually improved (Kaizan). Perfection is never attained but constant care and attention is needed to improve and maintain in the light of entropy.

These ideas of balance of opposites and going with nature added to the ideas of constant change and differing perspectives open up infinite possibilities of thought and action. They are not completely different to other ideas from the rest of the world. Similar ideas are found in historic ideas and the civilisations of other areas. The Greeks wrote down a lot giving later generations access to ideas that can be investigated and extended. Others have left other marks in oral traditions or culture. Of course it only natural that humans have investigated, thought and worked with the same world and universe so have found similar ideas and methods. They will be natural, balanced, changing and varied.

Like any tool you have to know how to use it. Finding the right time and place. Not using one tool all the time. These mind tools can be more powerful than a physical tool but thinking and practicing their usage leads to higher performance. When using metaphors with others it is important to develop the natural methods to usage of these tools and remember the communication needs of both giving and receiving timing the right message to the right person in the right way, not blindly blaming the receiver when disaster occurs after incorrect action.

Care needs to be taken when using metaphor as some people will later misunderstand it is a metaphor but you can paint a picture that can be understood and compared to another situation. You can take the known as a guide to the unknown and you can set up long term investigation. They can help with ideas too large or complex for words. The recipient has to be able to use them so simpler metaphors for some people and also ideas, allowing sometimes the freedom to expand to more detail and interpretations.

Going Real High and Diving Real Deep.

Metaphor and analogy are vital methods to create mental growth. They sometimes use examples of pre-existing knowledge and experience and overlap it onto another area. Sometimes they give a picture to explore. There are many other approaches to these literary devices and their use. They are flexible tools that have limitations and disadvantages, like any tool they need to be used well, not just stuck to regardless or incorrectly. A modern method commonly used is to write every part or detail especially to prove to someone managing or judging you. So the flaw here is ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. This highlights the limitation of words as well as showing the advantages of pictures. Advanced topics or elements would require more words than anyone has sufficient concentration to use on a practical basis. Good metaphors used well can be exponentially more effective in developing understanding and illustrating perspective.

Metaphors of mountains and oceans have been used for longer than writing. Here I want to start off with these two and look a little into them.

So picture a mountain out of the plain that towers over all around. It has a base of trees and vegetation then an increasingly barer area getting higher to only rocks and cliffs. It is snow capped. For human achievement whether an individual skill or activity or more complex area, this is the mountain metaphor. At the lower levels in the trees there are the most people, with lower level skills. If you are there you may catch glimpses through the trees higher up the mountain and see the backsides of people who have gained more skill and experience, although you might not recognise this. Some may be waving encouragement or holding ropes to help you up. Not everyone can see this above just dismissing them as noise or not looking in the right direction. If you grab the right rope it can help you out of the trees and you can look below and see the majority who are amongst the trees. If you grab the wrong rope it can break or somehow lead through trees but not up the mountain and out of the trees.

If you have got into the more open area you may choose to be happy at your achievement and picnic or try to pass ropes to those in the trees below. Some may walk sideways around the mountain and others will jump for joy and slip back into the trees. Now to climb further requires slightly different skills. In the distance you may see people in the snow you may also copy some of their methods, but ice climbing is different again requiring different skills and equipment and much more experience. To get up this high needs the help of others, hard work and luck.

Now I could go on but already you can see that the mountain is a comparison to development in a path to higher levels. So for instance a sport. Most people have an idea and can do some things, but to be competitive at the beginner level that can take you to the middle level of genuine progression and on to high level can be compared to climbing a mountain there are rope bearers perhaps teachers that can help you up, some may even have a fixed rope system that can get you all the way to the snow. If you have only been in the trees you can only guess what the higher levels are like and others can mislead you with broken ropes (for money?). You may just look down and not notice above, or start teaching what you think you know straight away.

Once you have climbed out of the trees you have abilities to climb. Can you translate that to climbing further or even other mountains? Be careful of rock slides and broken ropes that send you crashing back down. Be careful of thinking the ones at the top climbed up well and are not just about to come crashing down. Many ideas can be described through the mountain idea as metaphor or analogy.

As well as the heights there are the depths. Again there are levels and most people are just in the shallows or in rock pools by the side. You need tools that help you go deeper and keep you safe and you have to get away from distractions. Some people are dragged down by the currents or by other beings.

Here the first level involves getting into the water becoming aware of the surface level, learning to swim. Some people do not even get their face wet, others dive in fearlessly close to the edge (tome-stoning) with substances in their system. The ancient methods of the people of Polynesia apprentice by lying in the ocean looking at the stars and drifting feeling the currents and using the stars to help know how to travel along the oceans and where they are at any one time. Other people dive deep for pearls or deeper to see strange creatures and unknown dangers.

Another depths approach is deeper into an onion through layers to get to deeper layers underneath.

So the trick is not to think I need mental health support (true or not). It is to reflect on the idea and try to see what it could mean, what lessons can be learnt how else can you use these ideas. Of course also when are they not useful and misleading. Learn from maths so you compare like with like not incomparable ideas. There can be never ending depths and also lessons on climbing or journeying from one area that is easy to understand and the lessons applied to other areas. Perhaps we all climb but it is a different mountain for all of us and the depths of our oceans have different monsters in. Some of us can climb a lot on our own, others need ropes to see above the trees. Just imagine, play and see what happens.

The Difference Between Top and Bottom.

This could be theory and practice, but also most to least in ability or performance. The distribution of variance is a factor in many things. On the roads the learner driver is on the same road as the world champion, in the same queue going nowhere!

When you look at the law it mostly says what you would think it should say. When I have covered law for moving and handling, first aid and other areas there is always a logic to the law. You have responsibilities and so do others; to look after yourself and others. If you do that you are unlikely to have problems. The gap between the written down law and the average persons understanding and opinion is massive. What beliefs and opinions people operate under can amaze. There is a massive gap in understanding, which some exploit. An element for the legal industry is to reduce the gap of belief closer to actual (qui bono). In Health & Safety from 1974 there was a simplifying approach for ease of understanding and guess what; deaths and major accidents fell massively in the workplace. Other crimes have fallen but not due to simplification.

General understanding in most areas has a similar gap from the expert to the lay person.

There is a similar gap in health from the elite, those that do the recommended to the vast majority who keep the health service busy and to the highest performers. First is exercise, only 1 in 10 exercise enough (3*20mins a week or equivalent) and half the population not at all. 3 out of 4 eat unhealthy and most do not sleep enough. Less people are under the addictive effects of nicotine now, but the effects of alcohol are still large. This can of course be under the influence, withdrawal or the longer term effects. There are also medicines and illegal/legal self medication. All of these effect body and brain and degrade performance including awareness of this degradation. So I go to work and deal with overweight pre diabetics in sleep debt, drug filled people trying to make decisions. These decisions are rarely to a high level!

There is a general ignorance to what is possible, that is effective or anything long term. The average person is unhealthy, mentally unbalanced and ignorant of these points.

My problem is I know and feel the benefits of exercise and activity, of a healthy diet and consistent good nights sleep. Limited drug intake of some caffeine and some alcohol admittedly. I use this healthy body and clear head to do some thinking and planing ahead and with the general aim of good practice. Am I massively above average. Well yes after all the average is very low. The down side is others do not have these benefits and I (and you) have to deal with them. How do you get the average person to understand anything complicated or counter intuitive or long term. They need their next fix of some drug(s), some sleep and their body is crying out for stimulation, nutrients and rest all at once. So they have no understanding of higher levels of anything whether sport, legal, or even an awareness of the gap between them and the superhuman levels. Now this is not the only problem. The real problem is to get them to understanding healthy and a basic organised life by perhaps trying it and like the ex-smoker that discovers taste, and the alcohol abuser who discovers single binocular vision they might encounter understanding of what is actually going on. It is not the case for most to correct vision with corrective lenses, it is to stop clouding the vision in the first place.

You would think that most people would not give themselves mental and physical disabilities when they see the problems for those who are born or have an accident and have disabilities.

Its important to know who you are speaking to and the factors that effect any communication or action. Decision making and listening and thinking are effected by the blood that can be sugar levels (hyper/hypo) not just for diabetics. Alcohol, nicotine, medicine levels or timing including withdrawal, even of caffeine gives you the shakes. A full bladder creates urgency in thought as well as action. These are all immediate factors that also tend to happen a lot so become chronic factors that increase emotional decisions with cognitive bias filled reasoning. These chronic factors reduce the use of logic, maths and science knowledge and consideration. Favouring biased, superstitious and flawed thinking.

Reason with logical, mathematical and science truths requires practice, it is never finished or perfected. Critical thinking needs to be taught and encouraged and given time to work. It’s not natural as the evolved human brain has changed over millennia to cope with different challenges (Running away from predators, getting food and constant crisis). To make better more effective decisions and actions a different approach has to be used or machines take over sooner!

Such is the many variances in ability and experience that the gap between the most and the least can be too large to see. With IQ the difference between a top 5% and a bottom 5% is massive and in fact a person with a top 5% IQ may find something easy that an average person dose not even know exists. An example from sport is in grappling and Brazilian Jiu jitsu where a black belt can do pretty much whatever they like with a white belt with their 5 or more years of study and practice. It is only when you achieve a black belt (I have not got one in Jiu Jitsu) that you realise that it’s just a mastery of the basics still a major achievement. The but is the example of Marcello Garcia where several black belt competitors have been quoted as saying they felt like a white belt when training with Marcello Garcia. The gap from white belt to black and then again from black belt to the best (probably of all time) is hard to even visualise without black belt skills and experience. The same relationships exist with academic subject specialists to the general public. Some areas are obvious like height the under 5 feet to the over 6 and a half feet tall is easy to see other aspects are harder to see let alone comprehend.

Of course in a democracy every one has one vote each so the world champion has the same as a member of the public unaware of anything. This is an issue for getting quality decisions and actions. If I am on a mat with Marcello Garcia I do what he says is best, I go with his ability and experience, I don’t insist on having equality because I don’t have it. By all accounts he will be nice and then he will take your back and make you tap then let go when you do. Then he will help and advise and then still he will take your back and submit you. But when you role with another beginner you can get some success, gradually improving your understanding and skills.

Cooperation and Competition.

Clarity usually enables better performance. It is possible to over simplify things but it is also common to over complicate things.

An important distinction is to work out if a situation is competitive or cooperative. These situations are often conflated. Many people who do not work together go on team-building exercises. And many people who worked together are set up in competition with each other within their working environment. Hoping that the survival of the fittest gets the desired results rather than managing a team to work together towards a shared, identified goal is a common approach/mistake.

Many people are in competition with their work colleagues directly and indirectly. The incentives to work together are often week which directs (incentivise) the behaviour of the workers. In a school it is best for all if the children improve their skills and increase their knowledge and perform to higher levels. In many state secondary schools the classroom and corridors are labelled war zones, even though it is in everyone’s interest to cooperate not compete (conflict). Many work places are similar either directly competing in sales or indirectly through social and political environments.

The first task for an individual is to recognise the environment and situation they are in. Where are they in competition and where they are cooperative. Working out who is on your team and who is against is important. ‘Should’ is an easy distraction. The teacher goes into a school to help the children but the child often goes into a school to get what someone else perceives is good for them. All sorts of ‘should’ are in the teachers mind of how the children should be motivated, behave and understand. Reality hits quite quick in some schools. Other middle management roles have the same issues of cooperation and competition. Competing needs and interests effect the whole environment.

A second task is to go from conflict or competition to cooperation. This need may be immediate in the situation where conflict is ramped up. The best long term method is to prevent the conflict from developing. This quite often is a legal concept (often ignored) that should be enacted, as well as a principle of higher performance. There are many models to create groups or teams. Lack of clarity is not a good method, getting colleagues to compete against each other is not conducive to them working together. Teams need to bond together getting to know each other with respect. They need to work together in all stages to act at the best time and ways. They need to take responsibility for their own and teams actions and performance.

If the conflict is active you need to get back to cooperation. Security professionals have to try the correct level of their behaviour to match the level of conflict. The most commonly needed skill and tactic is talk. Calming down emotions, connecting to the participants to identify the issue and the way forward. Sometimes time and space is all that’s needed. Other times discussion may identify actions and perceptions that need to be addressed. Eliminating all conflict is impossible and sometimes the conflict is violent. The correct response has to be made to get the best results. The hindsight passive aggressive attacks often cloud the mind of the conflict resolver. The old adage of ‘don’t take a knife to a gun fight’ points to knowing the situation (battlefield) and what will work or will not to improve the situation. Sometimes violence in the immediate time is needed to protect people and property as the consequences of not can be immense. The law recognises that physical action may be needed, but professional handling of the situation needs preparation and training. A non-contact approach may be illegal (duty of care) and yet is not challenged for social and political reasons. The most powerful socially and politically are not necessarily the most knowledgeable. In regards to conflict they are most often ignorant of legal and effectiveness issues, but well aware of potential risks to themselves, while under-emphasising the risk to others or of inaction (the cost of not).

Many times the mistake of encouraging competition is made due to ignorance of the cost and consequences of inaction and the lack of desire to help others who are in conflict or who have to deal with the conflict. These skills and knowledge are not those that are incentivised for work promotion. There is a demand and pressure for accountability for the people who deal with conflict but not for those who do not prevent before and judge after. Even within an environment the phrase ‘keep your friends close and your enemies even closer’ comes to mind many workers are wary of those with power including those ‘on their side’.

How to compete is another topic, that I do not want to share with those who compete with me!

The Cost of Not.

We often think about how things cost, perhaps not that accurately but there is also a cost of not doing. If we say the actions that lead to the desired results are doing the right thing and things that get the wrong results as doing the wrong thing. Doing nothing is a decision and an action even if it is a passive, unconscious or in ignorance. You have to look for the right thing to do, not just hope or guess. Here I want to look at the cost of not doing some actions with some real world examples.

A common decision is to not pay for something as it costs too much. It is not common to analyse the cost of not paying. I will list some examples of where the results were catastrophic.

A historic decision made in 1966 by a Labour government (UK) was to stop development of a large aircraft carrier and to go for a small through deck carrier/cruiser with Harrier aircraft and helicopters. The through deck carriers proved quite capable and useful in action even beyond the specific designed roles. The Royal Navy is soon to receive a large carrier ordered by another Labour government suggesting that the benefits of a larger more capable ship is the right choice (all along). I would suggest it was the right decision in 1966 as well. Cost was the biggest factor although there were others. So HMS Invincible cost more than £175 (1980s) and operated small Harrier aircraft. Cheaper to buy and operate than a convention carrier with at the time larger Phantom and Buccaneer aircraft. These aircraft were though more capable in range, speed and payload. At the same time the larger carrier like previous carriers and as quickly brought to service AEW (Airborne Early Warning) aircraft just out of time for the conflict. Allowing earlier detection and ships to be kept further from danger. But the cost of not may well have been a war and 30 years of garrisoning the Falklands. So the first suggestion is that a large, capable aircraft is more likely to deter a war like the Falklands conflict where a decision was made to invade the islands by Argentina (Her Junta). Since the conflict there has been a presence of a garrison, navy ships and fighter jets. This garrison alone is more costly than the difference of cost between the through deck carrier and a larger carrier. Also if the carrier(s) could prevent the war where the UK alone lost 6 major vessels many helicopters and 255 dead. There were obviously many other costs not just equipment and financial, and of course Argentina paid a tremendous price. So the cost of not getting the more capable system may have lead to the cost and risks of a war and more military garrison costs for many years after (currently 30 years). Even if the large carrier did not deter the war it would of enabled a longer range operation against the Falklands with more capabilities while being out of reach of the Argentinian forces. Reducing the risk to ships and people. Soon a new full size aircraft carrier will enter service possibly pointing to the previous decision being ill thought out, but I do not want to suggest any one has learned any lessons!.

A commercial example was the Exxon Valdez oil spill (1999) where rather than employing a second person (or organising sensibly) the second in command of the vessel worked 36 hours straight. I am sure they could not afford the extra staff lets say $20,000 a year, but when in spite of receiving all the required information the ship was put straight into rocks causing the then biggest environmental disaster. One of the costs for the company (insurance?) was $3,000,000,000. I would suggest the cost of not employing or organising was slightly higher. The cost of not.

Many decisions are made daily on staffing levels on ground of cost. In the U.S. one stadium paid $100 million in costs for an unsafe stadium (security staff) when a customer was injured on the premises.

These are easily pointed out costs others will not be seen unless they are looked for. ‘Right first time’ philosophies of quality management are based on the higher cost of repairing faults and consequences of mistakes later rather than smaller costs earlier (especially systematic prevention).

Another situation is the panic response to events where ignorance of the law and other consequences effect reactions. A school teacher was escorted of the premises and sacked after physically restraining an unruly child who had vandalised and shouted abuse at people, and that was just that day. The law allows for adults to use force under certain circumstances, it also suggest training and procedures for this. As the Head did not know the law (I suggest they should have as part of their job) the reaction was expensive starting with the £70,000 awarded to the wrongly sacked member of staff. Of course the disruption of a sudden loss of a member of staff and the chaos after also has costs just less obvious.

Here the reaction was a common response where the head (and whole industry) feared the consequences of use of force. It is not related to the actual law but a fear perpetuated from above and other stakeholders (group think) of perceived consequences and practices not the actual law. The lack of understanding of not just the law which promotes professional actions for this kind of situation, but also the real world and scientific research and even common sense.

Day to day we do not calculate the cost of not exercising, eating well and sleeping, or the consequences of short term thinking (not delaying gratification). This also leads to acting without the consideration of cost because someone else pays and the attention gained while you have someone to blame (not yourself of course). These are a wide range of examples where uncertainty and fear of consequences have not been balanced by professional management and critical thought and analysis. These are common patterns that are met by professional actions where real and actual facts and information is used for decisions not emotion and pleasing others. Many social factors need to be addressed including the culture and group think of organisations that lead to costly decisions when they try to do things cheap.

Not Just Education.

I guess it’s my problem but I learned early that the logical way to approach things is to be prepared first. It also turns out it’s what all the best advice, experience and tradition says too. So my frustration is caused in several ways number one is people not letting me prepare. There may be many reasons why this happens their lack of understanding generally or of me, or it is to their advantage to not let me prepare? Second, most people start at the end not in thought as in having the end in mind they jump to later stages with out acknowledging (noticing) everything that has or could happen before. This is my third avenue of frustration where I notice and acknowledge the majority that happens before the obvious action bit at the end. Whether it was adults when I was a child or bosses at work the same pattern of unprepared people ignorant of methods or the situations imposing on me their choices. Now if you trust the other person by experience or giving them a chance you can be rewarded with a workable compromise and a better situation than you could on your own. But you get experience and unwariness of another’s preparedness and knowledge. Sure they have experience, but of what: fire-fighting, buck passing, guessing and of doing it ineffectively, or being lucky (family) or underhand (borderline illegal (which side of border?)). The truth is lots of people keep jobs by not rocking the boat or playing ‘the game’, not through job performance of their actual job (unless that job is actually just keeping it!). I want to encourage setting up and structuring negotiations with people and problems to get success not just turning up (every time) and shouting loud how successful one is, as long as you do not analyse it of course. This is having the knowledge and skills and plan before being chucked in the deep end. My work experiences have been various different deep ends. I have survived, I have coped and sometimes people have thought I have done well and others times badly. These thoughts are rarely measured, usually random silence fillers covering up the errors of the situation occurring in the first place. But the basic pattern is I will never get the job to stop it happening in the first place.

Explaining something to someone who does not understand has an element of art to it where simple words can sometimes enlighten the learner to new levels of thought or understanding. We all though have our limits and are wondrously varied in what and where these limits are. I have worked with children who are supposed to be ignorant and I have enjoyed adding to their knowledge and skills and hopefully their life. I have also worked with adults with similar experiences. The science of teaching is knowing what the learner knows or can do and adding the next piece of the puzzle to take the learner forward. When we move forward we like it, there is little resistance to the process or the teachers (guiders or what ever label chosen) input. Sometimes the input is not noticed by the learners or anyone around. The joy of teaching is in the progress itself. Sometimes of course the teacher and learner are one and the same.

The resistance to the process is my bug bear and constantly a frustration developing force. The resistance comes in many forms. A teacher is often in a formal setting with imposed compromises that reduce the joy of learners progress. Stakeholders is a common phrase where several uninformed parties can interfere with the teacher and the teaching. This is the biggest frustration in teaching; trying to explain or reason with these stakeholders. Humans are biased and without trust or force they will not listen or act to or for another person. Authority or perceived expertise sometimes has a formal structure or appearance whether there is actual expertise or not. Leading learning is leadership. Autocratic leaders deal with dissension in severe ways and do not have the loving trust of the followers but a hating trust of what the autocrat will do.

Resistance and barriers to learning can come from the learners background. They need a foundation to build learning on. As well as the social resistance there is personal resistance and barriers. Einstein is quoted as saying ‘say things as simple as possible but not more simple than that’. This occurs in teaching, the first is where the learner does not yet have the foundation on which to add the next piece of the puzzle. There are many instances I have found where people do not have the skills of learning, or the trust in teachers to proceed. Often they cannot recognise their lack of knowledge or skill or have an ego defence mechanism in place. Creating the conditions to deal with these barriers first is more difficult the older or senior the learner becomes. This lack of foundation of understanding is most difficult when the leaner perceives themselves as competent or in the senior position. I have often been in the position of explaining (mostly tactfully) to a person their job. Frustration is when you realise the second element from Einstein’s quote is insufficient to encourage understanding either at the time or probably ever.

Everyone has their limits. When you see clearly the learner is a long way from being able to do the puzzle (job) they are attempting. They do not have the foundation. Frustration is seeing the person is paid a lot of money for a job they are not equipped for where creating the conditions for progress are insurmountable. When of course the learner is your boss! When there is no realistic path to progress it’s time to accept defeat. They (and others) often do not know their own limits and without some flexibility to change nothing is going to proceed.

The main barrier is incomplete foundation. Many injuries are self inflicted mainly in youth as a skill or programme is attempted without preparation. The resulting injury will help bring the learner to reality or not. I often find with adults they do not have the skills and understanding of how to improve, they do not know what works for them. They train in short term methods wanting long term gains. They are susceptible to marketing and emotion and resistant to planned development. The quick fix is easy to sell, even if it has rarely worked (that may even be the business model). As well as the knowledge and skill deficit there are thinking and approach barriers too. A big restrictive thinking skill set comes under critical thinking. This is not monkey swinging in trees or running on the plains thinking. This is stop and work things out and then use the conclusions of thought. This has to be taught or researched (self teaching?) and practised. It is not within most education. Daily continuing logical fallacies are allowed, unchallenged in all aspects of life. Essentially the maths does not add up. The simple children’s toy illustrates (and must have been a great challenge for some). It is to put different shaped bricks into the right shaped holes. Like with like is simple to understand, a rock is not an elephant. And yet categorical errors are rife, comparing things illogically, changing descriptions by cherry picking certain information to make it fit a chosen view. Many times these errors are displayed by people with more power and rewards then intelligent thought. Often they have passed exams with the elements of critical thinking but fail to practically use the ideas or have destroyed the toy hammering all the pieces in the same hole!

I want to randomly try to express ideas towards finding better ways of explanation to aid progress in learning and application. I will think out loud to find better ways of teaching (self and others) and improving performance. I find perspectives from science but also traditional views from round the world that express ideas and concepts well. Many of the above elements and barriers have been recognised for centuries and yet still ignored to get results, even though they are barriers to achieving results.

Health like Education.

Health and it’s monopoly industry that shares many circumstances with education. It is essentially politically managed by the same group of people, with forces from society and the stakeholders are similar. This leads to similar issues of low performance in absolute terms for a rich economy. The choosing of public issues and operation is for others benefits. It is not in the best interests of the state. It is for those running the state and those working in the industry and others. Of course there is a name and theory for this; The Principle-agent theory. Here the principle is the member of the public but all the decisions and actions are by others the agents. These agents have many wants and desires that are not part of the agents health (or education etc.) they are other and can be opposite to the principles interests. A big problem in both heath and education is that the member of public whether child or adult has many decisions made for them that are of questionable value for the person themselves. As they are both monopolies (I’m sure another label would be preferred but the effect is the same) little choice is available. Also the person who suffers the failure is not the one who makes the decision. It is important to take responsibility for one’s own health (and education) it is too important to leave to others. From the opposite perspective the governance must encourage people to take responsibility for their actions. This must be the individual but also organisations and people who affect others. All together the wrong questions are asked and the wrong solutions attempted so that even amazing results have little value. The main questions for the individual are what is best for my health and education. Then what is best for my dependents and what is best for the country and humanity.

If you ask what’s the best thing for the state? Then one component would be economic. The simple truth is prevention is better than cure. Doctors and their administration are the expensive least effective end of health. They are doctors of medicine not health they have sometimes amazing knowledge and skills with personal genius (if this is not managed out at an early stage – not to standard!). They are well paid and over managed often by people of little understanding. Getting productive people who could and would work or contribute needs to be a priority.

Doctors have their specialisms and even the junior doctors role is full on in technical knowledge, skills and time. The courses are said to be half out of date by the time they finish, as new research is carried out in such quantity world wide. But the problem in the UK is it’s called the NHS; the ‘h’ standing for health not medicine. Yet very little of the budget goes to prevention and results are poor. The irony is of course that large numbers of illness and issues (mental and physical) are preventable. That is not to say there will be no Diabetes (almost 10% of NHS budget) with a little prevention. The numbers are huge just in the NHS bill but also the knock on effects of less work output of the individual and others around them as they deal with the issues created. If they leave work then there are welfare costs. A recent outcry over doctors overtime pay being over £13K a year per consultant, was met with claims of not enough doctors but the obvious problem is too many patients, in too poor health. Could the over £100K pay (plus training and equipment) of a consultant be better spent? How many social workers who work in an emergency capacity all the time could it pay for so that more problems could be identified earlier and cheaper. Or any number of workers whether fitness instructors or activity leaders, could have a better result, admittedly early on in the process not when an operation is needed, that’s still best left to the appropriate consultants

Of course the elephant in the room is the big three lifestyle factors are sleep, diet and exercise. These are health, not medicine, they are cheap, well known and have low performance indicators. The big scandal is the absence of any action. During recent times the health service was kind of protected but leisure was not. Sports and exercise facilities closed but the health service got protected. The Health service has practically no incentives to prevent health problems they are not responsible for leisure and measured on their success (maybe it’s hidden where no one looks!). All the incentives are to headline medical conditions. Health must have a role here. Funding based on health not treatment.

Obviously health has many factors. There must be facilities and provision to make it easy to participate for all ages. This must be nationally backed but also independents should be supported. As they are actually saving medical costs compared to no exercise/activity. Currently they have to pay for facilities, dodge danger, fill out paper work and then tell the tax office. Education must improve standards of participation, learning and support. Work places must pay the costs of preventing workers being active. People of course have to be incentivised to exercise both to encourage participation and reduce the costs for not participating.

Many businesses and industries profit from unhealthy options that they do not pay the bill for. The food industry has to be regulated or pay the obesity costs as the alcohol industry and retailers should pay the price too. As the results of smoking policy have reduced smoking levels to below 20% smoking from over 50%. Similar approaches must be made towards Obesity and Alcohol. As well as affecting the negatives the positives have to be made easier. Then ultimately the wrong doer must be made to take pay the costs, and the right doer must benefit from their decisions and actions.

Unhealthy work patterns that prevent organised activity should pay the premium to cover the cost. Limiting healthy opportunities of their staff must be addressed. Much research shows that poor working conditions and practices reduce the productivity of the workers. Unhealthy staff do less work through slower rates, more breaks and higher absenteeism. Just as badly maintained machines do not function as well and brake down.

There has to be joined up thinking and actions that get results. It is not a moral service to be ineffective as a health service. Working stupidly hard is still stupid when the less stupid way is to prevent. Improving Activity (including exercise), improving diets and improving sleep patterns, will improve productivity and actually be cheaper and less pain, making it more humane and the morally better approach. With the separation of government organisations they often save money in one area which increases the cost in another and overall. Without a holistic approach between government departments and organisations with legislation, results will not happen.