Message # 101 Even the Experts Can Be Mindless

This message is especially dedicated to the great Ellen Langer at Harvard.

When I met with Ellen Langer this week up at Harvard, we talked a lot about her theory of mindfulness. During her graduate class, Cognition and Decision Making, she told us about a great study that was done by a psychologist at Stanford.

The topic was schizophrenia and one of the indicators of this disorder is that you hear voices. So he had 10 people go to a hospital and say that they were hearing voices. That was the only thing they said that was false. They answered all the other questions honestly. Guess what?

None of them could get out.

So the point is that, many times we are mindless and don’t even know it. Dr. Langer says that we don’t know enough about disorders to say that there is only one way to cure it. This happens every day because we are so set in our ways. Only WE know how we truly feel.

If we are mindful of situations and notice differences, we will be able to perform at a higher level.

Thanks, Ellen.

Thanks for reading.