DISTANCING: BE YOUR FUTURE SELF

Abstract

Marquet (former nuclear submarine commander) and Gillespie (associate professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, specializing in organizational psychology) believe that “we are consistently and predictably biased when it comes to what we see and how we think. This shapes our behavior without us even realizing it. The core of the problem is the default lens through which we view the world is a first-person, egocentric perspective.” There are real-world consequences of relying on this perspective: “Planes crash, surgeries go awry, and companies go bankrupt when we humans become so engrossed in our immediate situation and our own capabilities that we miss critical cues and make flawed judgments.” However, we can choose the “self-distanced perspective. Self-distancing is a potent and underused superpower that we all have. We just need to learn how and when to tap into it.” They cite examples including how Jeff Bezos decided to leave a lucrative finance job in the 1990s to found Amazon, and how Gordon Moore and Andy Grove saved Intel in the 1980s with a “future-oriented reframe.” Research cited includes that of UCLA professor and author Hal Hershfield, and the idea of the “future self.”