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Should we trust experts?

People like…

Doctors
Lawyers
Scientists
Financial advisors
Gurus

If you have been practicing NLP for a while you may have tracked the implicit universality in
the statement - the implicit scope… always.

So now the question becomes

Should we [always] trust experts?"

The answer to this becomes obvious once you consider:

*  The map is never the territory and we ALL operate based on maps of the world and not reality itself

Our mind creates a cohesive experience of "reality". Billions of people walk around tricked by their mind that what they think is reality even when it's often not in actuality.

*  The world's information is currently doubling every two years.

Simply put no-one can keep up with all the relevant data that is generated on a
topic. Information is filtered both by our biases and big vested parties whose
profits are affected by our choices.

*  We are all prone to cognitive bias.

We each have our own unique "reality distortion field". We make errors in judgement.
We use mental shortcuts.

Experts do too.

Our conscious mind has very little buffer - and so we chunk and organise data (and in
the process filter what patterns we see.)

We use shortcuts that save time but which are not universal. We seek patterns. We
make stuff up.

We accepts modes as real.

Conclusions are often quickly arrived at and often flawed.

*  As we get older, our brain experiences a natural age-related cognitive decline.

We rely less on our senses and more on abstractions and reference experiences.

The "noise" in our mind goes up - the quality of thinking (without continual stimulus
and training goes down).

*  People make errors. And of course sometimes experts lie.

And of course our memories are reconstructions.

They are not complete truths or reality.

Our brain injects things that were not there. Stuff that never occurred gets wired up outside
of our awareness.

Our memories are fallible. Incredibly so.

And so are your friends, loved ones and clients.

The Big Take Away:

All of this is a useful insight to hold as you use and practice NLP.

Because when you use NLP as an operating system, you begin to realise that we ALL have a much
looser grip of "reality" than we realise or care to admit.

That BS (belief system) you've been telling yourself why you don't have what you want is not
FACT. Yet you have accepted it as such and so it shapes your life.

• Your memory is a figment of your imagination - each memory is a reconstruction.
• Your mind is a metaphorical construct - a tool that can help shape heavens or degrade your life.

And the same is true for everyone we meet.

For many of us; we've lost sight that we treat our thoughts as reality.

We treat our crappy internal dialogue as "truth".

In effect - we unconsciously accept our inner dialogue as the expert within us.

And that expert like all experts can be wrong.

If your mind is at times negatively affecting you - treat it like it is noise.

Presume it is wrong.

Find another way to create whatever it is that you want.

Stay outcome focused and creatively resourceful.

For more useful insight on the fallibility of our memory and minds - check out this TED talk called:

"Why eyewitnesses get it wrong"

For sure experts have their place. They provide a useful function.

Increasingly the mantra "trust but verify" is sounder advice.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 at 9:37 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.