3 Simple Ideas That Will Make You Smarter Than Most People

With a few tweaks in how you see the world, you can make yourself a little smarter than most people.

O n this site and in my book I’m always railing against how irrational we are, and how we’re filled with unconscious biases that lead us to making the wrong decision.

What I’ve spent little time discussing is exactly what some of these errors our irrational mind is prone to making are, and how we can combat them.

There are three mistakes that I see people make all the time. And by “people” I mean not just people I know, but the media, journalists, politicians, celebrities — everybody. You see them in pop culture constantly. And if you’re not informed of them, you may be susceptible to them as well. Check them out:

1. Don’t Fall for the Post Hoc Fallacy, a.k.a. Stupid Internet Headlines

Years ago, a group of researchers had people track their sleeping patterns. When they slept, how they slept, what they wore as they slept, how well they slept, how long and so on. The researchers then wanted to cull all of the data, analyze it and look for any patterns that could potentially help us discover how to sleep better.