>"The ultimate form of preparation is not planning for a specific scenario, but a mindset that can handle uncertainty." >-James Clear The markets and life are full of worries and solutions that we get lost in. These forces push and pull on us, distracting us as we navigate the complexity and uncertainty of the world. They choke off any leaning and growth we may experience by offering us short-term solutions at the expense of growth and maturity. The only defense we have is disciplined preparation. Just like going to the gym will help you stay fit, constant preparation whether it be practicing the fundamentals, reciting truths, or [[Worship]], will help keep the thorns that choke off our creativity, learning, and growth from overtaking us and help us keep focused on the truth. >One way to restrain our tendency toward overconfidence is to habitually position ourselves in such a way that renders a prediction of the future unnecessary. You might not know with certainty when the 100-year flood is coming, but you do know with certainty it will come. And that means you should leave yourself positioned accordingly. The purpose of positioning is to make prediction unnecessary. You are prepared, or you are not. The argument for not preparing is one of efficiency. It’s more efficient to only prepare when you need to. Being prepared all the time carries a cost. Overconfidence lulls you into a false sense of security about the future and ensures your position is weakest at the very moment you need it to be strongest. When the storm comes, it won’t give you a warning. >[Overconfidence: How to Fail Spectactularly](https://fs.blog/bias-from-overconfidence/) ## Putting Yesterday Away >When we look at the people performing at the highest level of their chosen field, we find that the self-serving bias that interferes with learning often recedes and even disappears. The people with the most legitimate claim to a bulletproof self-narrative have developed habits around accurate self-critique. ([[Thinking in Bets]], p.108) Part of this preparation is focusing on our feedback loops. When something goes your way do you take all the credit or do you sometimes realize it was the result of luck? When something doesn't go your way do you take responsibility and learn from the situation or do you blame bad luck or something else? Feedback loops are vital to our learning process. ## Mental Flexibility A fixed mindset will process your outcomes according to a fixed framework: usually if whatever happened makes you feel good then do more of that and if what happened makes you feel bad, avoid it. As you can imagine, this mindset does not encourage growth. It reinforces whatever fixed framework you have adopted. This isn't necessarily bad as that framework can be life-giving and that reinforcement can be thought of courage of your convictions, however what it is not is adaptable. This is by design, because if you believe something like murder is bad your belief around that should not be adaptable. However, most things in life are not this black and white. Therefore we need to be able to adopt a growth mindset: a mindset where we are constantly evaluating not only the outcomes that we experience but also our beliefs and when the facts on the ground change we are able to change our beliefs. ### Framing ### Priming **Case Studies** - [CHG Issue #57: Preparation not Prediction](https://cedarshillgroup.substack.com/p/chg-issue-38-faith) - [CHG Issue #91: Preparation](https://cedarshillgroup.substack.com/p/chg-issue-91-preparation?sd=pf) Explore Further: [[Complexity]] | [[Fielding Outcomes]] Tags: #seeds #Practices Your support for Cedars Hill Group is greatly appreciated <form action="https://www.paypal.com/donate" method="post" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="74PGN8ZXHQVHS" /> <input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" title="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!" alt="Donate with PayPal button" /> <img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1" /> </form>