Train your Brain to see Clearly

The Ethical Lexicon #1: Discover new truths to reveal endless possibilities

George Orwell said: If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. Because we think in words, clumsy speaking inevitably produces muddied thinking. Expanding your vocabulary brings discipline to your thinking and clarity to your thoughts. It can also make you more ethical and improve your leadership skills. Our first entry to the Ethical Lexicon: Inscrutable (in·​scru·​ta·​ble/ in-ˈskrü-tə-bəl) adjective Defying investigation, analysis, or scrutinization; impenetrable. Not easily understood; mysterious; unfathomable; opaque. Nobel Prizewinner Daniel Kahneman says our brains are designed to assume that what we see provides all the information we need: What You See Is All There Is. The news gets worse. Our brains are programmed to see what we expect to see and filter out what we aren’t looking for. To borrow from Hamlet: Most things are not inscrutable, but thinking makes them so. When we don’t see all we need to see, we make decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information. No matter how good our intentions, it’s likely our actions will be unethical. But we don’t have to be prisoners to our own mental programming. A few simple mindset shifts can keep us on the ethical straight and narrow. Click here to read the first installment of my new column in Fast Company Magazine.