The 3 Engrained Rules Running Your Mind Right Now (That You Don’t Even Notice)
Last year I read Ana Fabrega’s book The Learning Game.
She’s the Chief Evangelist for Synthesis School (a school for kids created by Elon Musk).
It’s her incredible take on how to upgrade the school system.
And there are hidden lessons in there for adults.
You have engrained rules running your mind that you don’t even notice.
Here are the 3 I’m reminding myself of right now:
#1: Intellectual Dependency
Ana talks about how schools teach kids to wait for an authority to tell them what to do. Authority in your career comes from your:
- CEO
- Investors
- Managers
- Colleagues
To rewrite this lesson, I use a 191 word prompt that turns AI into my intellectual thought partner that shows me how I’m thinking about risk. It’s based on Sahil Bloom’s ABC Goal Framework and a My First Million episode where talks about the importance of being a risk reducer.
#2: Provisional Self-Esteem
Ana points out that school teaches us to rely on authority’s opinion of us as truth.
The teacher says we failed a test?
We must not be good at that subject.
In adulthood, we give the power to our managers, investors, and CEOs to determine how we perceive ourselves.
And we also give that authority to the first thought that pops into our minds.
We tend to think of that thought as fact…instead of pushing through our Assumption Stack to actually see reality.
This is where First Principles becomes extremely important.
I use a 134 word prompt to turn AI into my First Principles Thinking coach.
This is my go-to when I feel doubt, imposter syndrome, or too much negative chatter taking over my mind.
#3: Class Position
School teaches us to rank ourselves in comparison to the other students.
And we bring that with us into our adult lives.
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
We love to compare ourselves to others and try to play the same games better.
You know the videos of older people saying their biggest regret was not living life on their terms?
Comparison is where that stemmed from.
And if you’re not aware of the games you’re playing…they’ll run your life without you even realizing it.
Bryan Johnson is the one that really opened my eyes to this.
He inspired me to create a 200 word prompt that turns AI into a thought partner that points out all the games I’m playing by asking me how I spend my time.
Then, we work through how I define winning those games and AI shows me the common sacrifices people make to win them.
Lastly we figure out which games are worth playing and which I want to opt-out of.
Each of these prompts is meticulously crafted based on extensive research.
- The ‘Play the Right Games’ Prompt comes from 20 hours of Bryan Johnson interviews and reading his books.
- The First Principles prompt draws from reading through 98 Mental Models to find the most useful.
- The Intuition x Logic and Reasoning Prompt is inspired by a psychology textbook I read called “The Intuitive Executive” that’s a huge collection of research studies that show executives how to think better, and where to add AI in their decision-making.
If you want to go through the same thought exercises, I have all of these prompts available for free in my Starter Pack of Prompts.
