How to Be Better at Almost Everything

by Pat Flynn

  Before Bed

  Engage in a mindfulness/prayer-based tea ritual an hour or so before bed.

  Recommended Additional Reading

  How to Pray: Reflections and Essays (C. S. Lewis).

  * * *

  It’s pretty simple: We sit for at least five to ten minutes first thing in the morning and let whatever thoughts happen to come, come. We don’t try to push them away, but we don’t try to hold on to them either. Instead, we simply note them. We build awareness and welcome them lovingly but also don’t pay too much attention to them. Oh, hello anxiety—come right in. Cup of tea, perhaps? It’s this warm, empathetic invitation that gives us headspace. We’re after clarity and independence of mind—we’re after a state where we’re no longer so entangled with our emotions that they dictate our every behavior, and where we can dispassionately observe them, almost as if we’re standing on the sidewalk, watching the cars go by. Because most of the time it feels like we’re standing right in the middle of the road, doesn’t it? Dodging and swerving and throwing our hands up, yelling stop! Focus is simply about standing off to the side, where it’s safe and not alarming. It’s not about trying to halt the traffic of your thinking, which only leads to congestion problems. It’s about alleviating that congestion and letting it cool off—which it will. You just need to get out of its way. You need to stop getting so involved with the circulation of thoughts. You need to stop playing traffic cop.

  Start your day with this. And do it again before lunch and then after dinner. Remember the principles of generalism. Repetition and Resistance. Start with a period of meditation and/or prayer that is challenging but leaves you successful. Don’t strive for too much too soon—you’ll just get angry and overwhelmed. Increase resistance by meditating or praying for longer periods or in more chaotic environments, like work. The latter is when we get into integration.

  I remember a talk from a holy man who, upon being asked how often he meditates, said he meditates all the time—that he was even meditating right at that moment. The person interviewing him was astonished by this and his eyes widened. He looked aghast. Now, this holy man could have been making a bunch of stuff up, having once decided that so far as con jobs go, spiritual guru might work out better in some respects than colonics, but say he wasn’t. Say he was the real deal. Well, then I think the point the holy man was making is that meditation isn’t something you’re supposed to do on the side of a mountain. Meditation is something you’re supposed to practice very nearly all the time.

  Harnessing the power of focus is how we snap our attention onto whatever deserves it and pull our attention away from anything that doesn’t. There’s no reason your work—playing the piano, practicing with a potato gun, shooting pool—shouldn’t be a point of meditation. You should also be focusing on whatever skill you’re working on. But at first we develop the skill by extracting the principles and practicing them in a seated or kneeling position—at home, in church, while waiting in the parking lot as your spouse finishes the weekly shopping—and as soon as we’re able, we apply this focus to every single activity we can. This is how we break free of the prison of our own minds; this is how we overcome anxiety and self-sabotage and avoid turning into someone we really don’t want to be. It all starts in our mind. Here’s a little suggested schedule to help you hone your focus.

  LOGIC

  It was the philosopher Norman L. Geisler who told us why logic matters:

  Simply put, you can’t avoid studying logic, so you might as well know what you’re doing. It is the basis for all other studies. It is the basis for all math and science. Even music, from Bach to the Beach Boys, is based on logic. Without it, there could be no rational discussion of anything; writing would be impossible. How can you put a sentence together without a logical order?

  OK, sold. Now, where do we start? Well, we start by examining a few simple rules of logical thinking, and learning what makes for a good argument and how to avoid a few of the more common fallacies. For example, learning the differences between induction and deduction, and why you shouldn’t answer an argument by attacking a person’s character. The basics, then.

  * * *

  LOGIC WORKSHEET

  * * *

  Questions to Ask Before Engaging in Argument

  On this subject, what are my biases?

  On this subject, am I willing to accept an outcome I dislike?

  How could I argue against my position?

  Have I taken the time to best understand my opponent’s position?

  Thou Shalt Not Commit These Ten Logical Fallacies

  1.RED HERRING: Intentionally distracting away from the argument.

  2.NON SEQUITUR: Arriving at a conclusion not supported by the premises.

  3.GENETIC FALLACY: Attempting to invalidate a position by explaining how it came to originate. (Example: You think democracy is great only because you grew up in America.)

  4.BANDWAGON FALLACY: Assuming that because many people believe something, it must therefore be true.

  5.COMPOSITION FALLACY: Assuming that something is true of the whole because it is true of some—or all—of the parts. (Example: If a team has all the best players, it will always win.)

  6.AD HOMINEM: An attack on the person. Attempting to undermine the character of a person rather than addressing their argument.

  7.FALSE DILEMMA: Claiming a situation to be either/or when there is at least one additional option.

  8.CIRCULAR REASONING / BEGGING THE QUESTION: Already assuming what you are attempting to prove. In other words, offering no evidence distinct from the conclusion. (Sandusky is in Ohio. Therefore, Sandusky is in Ohio.)

  9.APPEAL TO AUTHORITY: Assuming that just because someone is in a position of authority, they are therefore correct.

  10. STRAW MAN: Setting up an artificially weak version of an opposing point, therefore making it easy to refute.

  How to Practice Making Arguments

  Join a Facebook debate group. Engage daily.

  Record at least one logical fallacy in conversation per day.

  Engage in frequent, consensual, low-stakes arguments with friends or family.

  Write a weekly well-reasoned opinion piece on social media.

  Recommended Additional Reading

  Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks).

  * * *

  Logic is ordering your thoughts; it’s thinking done well and done right. It’s what stops us from buying stupid things and voting for stupid people and putting our fingers in places that could shock us. Logic, put frankly, is life’s foolproof bullshit detector. And since this is your life, you’ve got to be able to think if you’re going to survive. You’ve got to be able to figure your way through things. You’ve got to know what makes for a good argument and what sound reasoning is.

  Logic used to be a skill taught to almost everyone. Now almost no one studies it. The effects of this, I think, are obvious and gross. People are duped by slick-sounding folks with an appealing accent—on infomercials, at political rallies, in the classroom. This is not good. This is really not good.

  We all like to think that thinking’s important, but very few of us ever learn to do it well. We never learn what logic is or why it matters or how to use it or how to tell when somebody else is using it, or not. It’s a skill with carryover. To think clearly is to write clearly—or at least to have the potential to. (It is also to have the potential to persuade, though we will have more to say on that later.) This is why we say logic is a metaskill—ordered thinking is how you make sense of the world and how you make sense to other people.

  You learn to think so you don’t get taken advantage of, but also so you can express yourself, solve problems, and communicate. There’s a lot of benefit to thinking about thinking. So let’s think about it. Specifically, let’s think about how to get better at it.

  Well, one way—and this is going to sound simple, but it works—is by practicing puzzles. There a
re so many apps and games these days that set you up with logical exercises: starting your day solving a few of these puzzles will do a lot to build your critical capacity. Most people spend no time with exercises like these, with questions like “If Bob and Jon and Matt are all brothers, and the following statements are all true, who’s the oldest?”

  Another one of the best ways to become a better thinker is to engage in debate—to actually practice making arguments and defending a position on something. So that’s why in our little World School System everybody is on the debate team and everybody argues and is judged on how they do, and winners will be celebrated and losers sentenced to some sort of yet-to-be-determined, very likely excruciating, punishment, probably. Nobody gets out of this. Because this will force students to intellectually grind a question to pulp, and that’s something we should all get in the habit of doing.

  There will be assigned reading, as well. The book in this class will be Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking by Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks.

  From there, each student will engage in a weekly debate with another student or as part of a panel. Sometimes students will get to pick their topic and other times they won’t, since it’s a good exercise to argue for a position you don’t necessarily believe in—in fact, people should be doing that as often as they can. A good debate involves knowing not only your position but the opposite, as well. Plus, having to argue for a position you don’t agree with will either strengthen your defense or cause you to adopt a different point of view, but either way, you’re getting closer to getting things right, and that’s what we want.

  Like for any other skill, we use Integration > Isolation. Yes, it’s good to study the rules of logic and each of the many individual fallacies—something we don’t really have time to cover in detail now. You learn to be logical mostly by making and defending arguments and trying to get better at it. Pick a topic you’re interested in—it can be spicy or it can be dull (you don’t have to make every argument about religion or politics). Some arguments can be boring but made well, and that’s fine. It’s all practice. Often it’s better to start with lower-key topics because emotions will be less likely to erupt if, for example, you’re making an argument that oatmeal can lower a person’s blood sugar instead of an argument that the minimum wage has long-term effects on the American economy. Though you might be surprised.

  The next step is to increase resistance. Raise the stakes. Seek out more rigorous topics and opponents. Talk about the minimum wage. Or religion. Force yourself to establish a series of premises and defend them. Doing this can be exhausting, but it makes you better. Sometimes you’ll lose. That’s fine so long as you always take something away from it—either an opportunity to strengthen your argument or change your position, because, well, because you were wrong.

  Here’s the thing: the person who practices logic understands that almost all truth is discovered through the gradual removal of error. You figure out what’s right by being corrected and adjusting your position on things. Nobody is born with the answer to everything—not even Father Arul. We have to figure out most of this as we go along, and be flexible and willing to change. Logic, let me tell you, is just as useful for calling yourself out as it is for calling out others. We all get emotional. We all form attachments to things. But we mustn’t let what we want to be true determine our beliefs about what actually is true.

  If logic does anything, it gets you to think before you open your mouth, and what a valuable skill that is. It gets you to assess your arguments before you present them. And what a valuable skill that is.

  For instance, right away, a sense of logic should stop a person from ever falling for poor dietary advice, even if they don’t have a degree in nutritional science. Of course, a degree in nutritional science can help, but we all can’t have a degree in everything we’re interested in, and there are a lot of things in life we’re going to need to figure out without having the time to be formally educated in them. This is why we think about thinking: so we can think about things and do a good job thinking about them, or at least realize when we don’t have enough information to go on. Logic can lead you to the right conclusion or, often, to the conclusion that you don’t know enough to form a conclusion just yet. And that’s a wonderful and prudent thing—not getting ahead of yourself.

  Don’t worry about never being able to speak up for lack of certainty. That’s not what logic is about. An argument is merely presenting reasons for assuming that a position is true and making those reasons as convincing as possible, even if they aren’t absolute. Say you want to argue for Austrian economics, or the existence of God, or Megadeth over Metallica. You don’t have to establish a geometric proof for any of these. You only need to offer reasons that make your position more plausibly true than not, and some will accept those reasons and others will attempt to refute them, but hopefully everybody will learn something and get along.

  I just want to emphasize the use of the word argument before we wrap this discussion up. When most of us think about “arguing,” we picture how badly our extended families behave around the holidays, shouting at each other over their various religious and political and economic beliefs, never once presenting anything in the realm of lucidity. That’s not what I mean when I use that word; I mean something that is well presented and well debated. Something, well, logical. Not something people do when they’re drunk, not something emotional.

  I’ve lost a lot of arguments, and I think I’m getting better at it. The better I’ve gotten at losing arguments, the more I’ve tended to win them. The point of arguing shouldn’t be to win, however. That may be the point of being on a debate team, but that’s not the point of arguing, which should be to figure out a position, to discover truth. The best way to win an argument is to not be wrong, and the best way to be right is to know when you’re not right. Logic can help you do that.

  PERSUASION

  So far, we’ve talked about discipline and focus (or patience) and logic (or reason). Now we need to talk about persuasion. Because it’s hard to get what you want in life without being able to convince people to give it to you. That sounded odd. Let’s put it this way. It’s better to get along with people than not. It’s better to have people like you than not. And if persuasion is anything, it’s being liked by people, even if it’s only some of them. So here’s how to get people to like you and why this doesn’t involve being liked by everybody.

  All worthwhile attention starts by telling the truth. If you want to be persuasive, you need to have confidence in what you say, since people can always tell when others aren’t sure of themselves. Persuasion isn’t about getting everybody to like you. Persuasion is about getting enough people to like you. Because here’s the problem people fall into: they think being persuasive means to pander. But pandering isn’t being persuasive. Pandering is having no backbone, no real, true center of belief. It’s not having enough conviction to say what is true—it’s saying only what you think people will like, whether you believe in it or not. Nobody wants to be friends with somebody like that, or, if they do, it’s only because they want to get something out of them, like free coffee at work.

  People are attracted to those who have something to say and who apparently believe in that something. And if you have something to say, people are going to either agree with you or disagree with you. A good example—love him or hate him—is Donald Trump. Very few people “like” Donald Trump: they want to either marry him or send him to the gulag. I’m not saying you have to be like Donald Trump to be persuasive, but I’m saying there’s something you can learn from Donald Trump, who is persuasive. (I’d like to note something about one of Donald Trump’s persuasion techniques. Some people say he’s a liar, yet I just said being persuasive starts with telling the truth. What gives? Well, Donald Trump has learned to make statements that are often “directionally true” but specifically or in other ways exaggerated. This is a more nuanced technique—and not something we have
time to get into now—but it is not necessary to use this technique to be persuasive, and I do not particularly agree with its use on an ethical level, though virtually every effective politician engages in it. Anyway, it’s worth noticing. For more, see the book Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Robert Cialdini.)

  The first thing is to become very OK with the fact that not everybody is going to like you and not everybody is going to agree with what you have to say. Because as soon as you have something to say, there’s always someone who will disagree with it—even if you state the earth is round, there will be someone who disagrees with it, unfortunately—and someone who will be offended by it. You simply can’t go through life worried about who you’re going to upset with your beliefs. The very act of having beliefs is bound to upset somebody. The fact that you own things is upsetting to someone, and the fact I just said that is upsetting to someone else. Instead of worrying, go through life getting clear on your beliefs and the reasons you adhere to them, and then speak. Now, don’t be an ignoramus, however. Don’t voice an opinion without backup. This is why we use logic and reason. Because you’re going to need to know how to defend yourself after you’ve offended someone, even if you never intended to.

  Back when I got into fitness, a lot of my original audience was drawn to me because I was bold about what I believed. A lot of people were specializing. I was saying maybe try generalization, for a change. This got me into no small number of arguments. But I always presented my reasons lucidly (I think) without taking personal digs. People appreciated that. They liked that I was clearheaded and that I was confident in what I had to say, even in the midst of debate. And let’s be fair: I was also very fit, which illustrated my beliefs. But so were many of the people I was arguing against. Ultimately, my appeal came from standing for something—something people themselves seemed interested in or at least curious about. I was speaking up for the generalists and all the people who weren’t the best at anything but still wanted to improve. That’s a lot of people.