How to Protect Yourself From Misinformation (Wise Decision Maker Guide 31)

Greetings Decision maker,

Hope you’ve been able to take steps to prepare your family and your business for the possibility of disruptions caused by the counting of votes after today’s US presidential election. Today I want to help you prepare for another challenge that we all face in today’s political landscape: misinformation.

Unfortunately, we are vulnerable to misinformation because our brains are lazy. The more effort it takes to process information, the more uncomfortable we feel about it and the more we dislike and distrust it. By contrast, the more we like certain data and are comfortable with it, the more we feel that it’s accurate. This intuitive feeling in our gut is what we use to judge what’s true and false.

Yet no matter how often you heard that you should trust your gut and follow your intuition, that advice is wrong. You should not trust your gut when evaluating information where you don’t have expert-level knowledge, at least when you don’t want to screw up. Structured information gathering and decision-making processes help us avoid the numerous errors we make when we follow our intuition. And even experts can make serious errors when they don’t rely on such decision aids. These mistakes happen due to mental errors that scholars call “cognitive biases.”

Fortunately, we can take a number of steps to overcome cognitive biases, address misinformation, and make our public discourse and political system more truthful.

To learn more, check out this blog:

Recommendations For You

Besides the stress around the possibility of an election disaster, you need to prepare well for the winter blues. Given the dangers of being in enclosed indoor spaces with others who aren’t part of your pandemic pod, you’re going to have many less entertainment options this winter. Something that I and many of my executive coaching clients have found surprisingly helpful is virtual reality. It literally takes you into another world, and can provide a great deal of entertainment. It’s also surprisingly affordable, with lower-end versions costing around $50 and higher-end options starting at around $300. (These are not affiliate links and I won’t get a commission if you use them to make a purchase, simply including them as a resource.)
Have you invested into a virtual reality headset or any other entertainment options ahead of the winter?

Recent Public Appearances

You might find of interest a number of recent public appearances about my three recent best-selling books and about the topic of election disaster risk:

Glad to share that many prominent venues picked up my writing on how to prepare for an election disaster. They include this article in Fortune, this article in Inc Magazine, and this article in Entrepreneur.
Podcast interview on “Onward Nation Podcast” about how to make wise business decisions
Podcast interview on “Dr. Drew” on how to avoid cognitive biases related to the pandemic
Podcast interview on “All Business with Jeffrey Hayzlett” on how to protect yourself from cognitive biases in business

What’s Up With Me

Having prepared the best I could for the possibility of an election disaster, I’ve been focused on spreading the word widely and helping others get ready. It’s been gratifying and exciting to see how many prominent venues picked up and shared this story; hopefully, that will help their readers and listeners get prepared for this possibility and buy their own version of election insurance. Of course, I’m very much hoping to wake up on November 4 and find out that one of the candidates has conceded, but better safe than sorry.

In other news, my wife and I are wrapping up the last remnants of our garden before the first frost. Here are some of our tomatoes, hopefully the green ones will ripen.

Help Me Serve Your Needs

To which cognitive biases related to misinformation do you think you might be most vulnerable? Which of the techniques to address misinformation will you plan to use? Which next steps will you take based on this article/video/podcast?

Look forward to your feedback! I strive to improve my ability to help you avoid decision disasters and maximize success, so any feedback you can provide on this content - or anything else - will help me serve your needs better.

Decisively Yours,

Gleb

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