The document discusses how humans often repeat ineffective behaviors, likening this tendency to a dog walking in circles with a box. While short-term persistence can yield temporary success, long-term change requires new strategies that may feel uncomfortable but ultimately lead to better outcomes. Enhancing one's thinking skills can facilitate the adoption of these new behaviors, making it easier to achieve goals.

2. I saw this funny video the other day.

3. The kind where you want to use as few
brain cells as possible.

4. It was this dog, who had this box.

5. The way he was holding the box, was
all he could see was the inside of the
box.

6. So he kept walking around in circles,
bumping into things.

7. Because he was a dog, and not an
astrophysicist, he didn't think to put
the box down, take a look around, and
then choose another strategy.

8. There are lots of videos like that.

9. Cats, dogs, all acting goofy.

10. But we humans, who often times fancy
ourselves as superheroes of logic and
scientific thinking, don't often do
much better.

11. Sure, we convince ourselves that we're
giving it our best shot, but most of the
time, we're like that poor dog.

12. Crashing into things, but we just back
up a bit, and then crash into them
again.

13. Naturally, it can be tough to tell if
you're really doing the same thing or
not.

14. Because humans, we're doing things a
little bit more complicated than
walking with a box in our mouths.

15. We're interacting with other humans,
or other complicated systems.

16. And as the saying goes, "you can't step
in the same river twice," every time
we interact with the system, even if we
ARE blinding doing the same thing
over and over, the SYSTEM is changing,
so it actually is possible to get a
different result.

17. In the short term, this is pretty good.
Just back up, try again and keep going
until you get it right.

18. But every time you succeed with this
strategy, it actually reinforces the idea
of doing the same thing over and over.

19. Short term, pretty good. Long term,
not so good.

20. A lot of times it's better to simply try
something different.

21. Sometimes a little different,
sometimes a LOT different.

22. This can be frustrating.

23. Because once you change something,
you'll feel a little uncomfortable.

24. And when you feel uncomfortable,
you'll be much more sensitive to
things that "seem" like failure, but are
really feedback.

25. Or you'll more likely to "interpret"
feedback AS failure, rather than
feedback.

26. One way make this a LOT easier is to
simply expand your thinking.

27. Learn to think in different ways, so
you'll see things differently.

28. Then taking different action will seem
a lot easier.

29. Kind of like discovering a new route to
work that's quicker and easier.

30. You aren't driving around blindly
hoping to find a new way, you're using
your enhanced thinking skills to FIND a
new way so you don't have to stumble
around.

31. The more you work on your mental
skills, the easier it will be to "try on"
different behavioral skills, you'll be
able to get a lot more cool stuff.

32. (Or meet more people or make more
money or whatever you want.)

33. mindpersuasion.com/ia/