Comments on: Extreme Thinking

By: Leo Nordwall

Leo Nordwall — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 23:58:16 +0000

Being a role-player with an interest in personal development, I am not a bit surprised that you recommend rule number three (though I haven’t seen the idea systemized like that before).

When playing a character (or version of yourself as you’d like to be), if you believe in it, other people will too. And you’ll perform much better as well.

I keep many characters in my head for various situations (such as the creative artist, the überintelligent theorist/writer, the corporate representative, the activist etc). I dress up differently depending on what character I need at the moment and in general try to tune into the persona I want to be.

Works like a charm.

By: nec

nec — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 05:44:55 +0000

the author of that article, Michael Nielsen, has an another essay titled as “Principles of Effective Research” which has a good taste on personal development like Steve Pavlina’s articles.

Don’t make the title fool you. just replace “Research” with “People”, or “Life”, etc.

By: nec

nec — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 01:44:51 +0000

yeah, sorry. it was obvious. not being a native english speaker caught my thinking style (i’m smart, believe me please )

btw, i enjoy a lot your articles.

By: Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 01:22:52 +0000

@nec: I believe the rule was that if there’s a vowel on one side of the card, then there must be an even number on the other side. This rule doesn’t apply to the second card in your example because there isn’t a vowel on the card. So the rule can’t possibly be broken. Note that the rule didn’t force anything upon consonants — those can have any number on the other side (even or odd).

By: nec

nec — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 00:16:58 +0000

Btw, I got both the card game and the bar game correct in the article. How nerdly of me….

i can’t get how two cards are enough to verify that the rule is obeyed. what if the cards are configured as:
A B 2 1 ->4 6 E C

in that case, when i only check the first and fourth cards, i may say the rule is obeyed; but in fact the second card breaks it.

i guess there is something missing in the game explanation. (like only A,B,1,2 are written on cards)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 18:12:29 +0000

I think point 3 is part of what you called willpower in your series on self-descipline. (Creating an effective beachhead.) I like this idea a lot.. In college, the class schedule is a pretty good opportunity to do this.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 17:50:39 +0000

Steve,

Thanks for pointing out the article. It was very thought provoking, and fits right in with many of the principles you’ve defined. I wish the author had expounded on the principles for creating successful social groups that he mentioned at the end of the article. Perhaps you can give us your thoughts on the topic.

Cheers,

Mike

P.S. I got both games as well. Probably that computer science and math training.

By: Music

Music — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 15:19:07 +0000

Point 3 is a very good idea. I know someone who became a substitute teacher so he could learn to speak freely to crowds. The idea paid off big time!