The Art of Clear Thinking: A Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules for Making Tough Decisions

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This book is a distillation of those lessons [that I learned as a fighter pilot] and how modern U.S. fighter pilots think about decision-making. Being on the cutting edge of applied decision-making, we've taught the techniques in this book to pilotd around the world, including thr Dutch, Israeli, Norwegian, South Korean, Japanese, and over a dozen other air forces... The Art of Clear Thinking takes an in-depth look at the everyday illusions we come across, and how to defeat them once and for all. What makes us jump to conclusions, evaluate incorrectly, and consistently make errors when we should know better? Why do we act against our own interests so frequently? At Mach 1.6, the jet began shaking: The extreme stress of the air resistance—over three hundred times what a car experiences at highway speeds—began causing the aluminum-alloy wings to flutter, sending vibrations throughout the plane. They were rapidly increasing at a rate that was not sustainable to the airframe.

Purposeful reading can help with critical thinking because it encourages you to read actively rather than passively. When you read, ask yourself questions about what you are reading and make notes to record your views. Ask questions like: A riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes decisions, but also for handling everyday choices at work and home." Based on years of experience making high-stakes, split-second decisions as an Air Force fighter pilot, The Art of Clear Thinking teaches readers to make clear decisions in their everyday life. ​ The system that Lee describes is known as the ACE Helix - Assess, Choose, and Execute. Lee presents a well thought out approach for taking these concepts and applying them to the world that most of us live in. The vast majority of us will never be soldiers, let alone fighter pilots. The decisions we make will most likely not have life or death implications. Yet, these principles will provide a platform for evaluating current circumstances and drawing on the experiences we’ve had to make the best decision within the shortest period of time that is possible.As the title of this psychological self-help work suggests, Flesch explores what clear thinking is and how it can be achieved. He thereby takes you on an unexpected ride, touching the scientific fields of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neurology, sociology, history, probability theory, and more.

Technology has now automated many of our lower-level tasks. This has added leverage to each decision we make. The computer that I’m typing on can, by itself, perform the job of dozens of people from just a few decades ago, a car can travel over ten times faster than a horse-drawn wagon, a modern combine harvester can harvest crops hundreds of times faster than by hand, and the jet I fly allows me to be thousands of times more capable than I could be on my own. One way to illustrate this leverage is through the energy we use. The average person, despite physically generating only one hundred watts of electricity—about what a light bulb uses—now consumes over twelve thousand watts of energy. That energy powers the technology that amplifies our decisions. Today, the difference in outcome between a good decision and a bad decision has never been so great.In Lite English (1983), Flesch advocated the use of many colloquial and informal words. The subtitle of the book reveals his bias: Popular Words That Are OK to Use No Matter What William Safire, John Simon, Edwin Newman, and the Other Purists Say! The ability to make a correct decision with incomplete information and a limited amount of time is not just for fighter pilots, though—it’s a universal skill. From leaders to entrepreneurs to teachers to nurses to first responders, our success and ability to achieve our goals relies on making the right decisions at the right time. The world is a complex adaptive system where all decisions are interconnected—like the gears in a mechanical watch, each decision affects peripheral decisions, often leading to disproportionate changes in outcome. Everything in life is a trade-off; there is a cost—be it time, money, energy, or some other precious resource—for each decision we make. The key is to find the best long-term value for the given cost. And today, the stakes for our decisions have never been higher. An important one is visualization. So as fighter pilots, we will visualize through an entire sortie, and it's important to bring in as many senses as possible. And you want to visualize it perfectly the first time. If for whatever reason, your brain goes off on a tangent and you think about something not going perfectly, keep re-visualizing it until you get it down perfectly. Everything from how you're feeling, thinking, what it smells like — everything to make it as realistic as possible. That will not only prep your brain for interweaving all these different concepts together, but it will also increase your confidence because you essentially are telling yourself you've done it before.

This book is a 7 out of 10 (⭑⭑⭑⭑) for me. It's a good read, despite minor weaknesses (like that it is a little dated by now) I would generally recommend this book to most people.Lee's writing style effortlessly captivates readers, drawing them into the high-stakes world of fighter aviation. The book's strength lies in its ability to seamlessly blend the intense experiences of a fighter pilot with practical strategies applicable to everyday life. Through Lee's lens, readers gain invaluable insights into how to learn faster, develop mental toughness, and make critical decisions with confidence. Critical thinking is the art of making clear, reasoned judgements based on interpreting, understanding, applying and synthesising evidence gathered from observation, reading and experimentation. Burns, T., & Sinfield, S. (2016) Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University (4th ed.) London: SAGE, p94. To solve a puzzling problem, look for a seemingly irrelevant key factor in the situation and for a seemingly unsuitable pattern in your mind. In The Art of Clear Thinking , Hasard Lee distills what he's learned during his career flying some of the Air Force's most advanced aircraft. With gripping firsthand accounts from his time as a fighter pilot and fascinating turning points throughout history, Hasard reveals powerful decision-making principles that can be used in business and in life, including: And then lastly is to try to get yourself out of tunnel vision. Literal tunnel vision. What I teach new students is you really want to look out of the corner of your eyes. That helps you to detach and allows you to look at the situation separately and that helps to calm you down, to be able to make more rational decisions.

With new or complex situations, we must move beyond our risk-versus-reward intuition and think in terms of expected value. upside multiplied by the probability of it occurring, minus the downside multiplied by the probability of that occurring. …in the real world, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine the exact numbers to use. This is called the base of sand problem. The solution, therefore, is to forgo the illusion of precision and use a technique called fast-forecasting. In almost every system, there are only a few variables that, due to strong power laws, drive the system. not get overwhelmed by the details—logic and reason are what drive the technique. Precision is often the enemy of conceptual thinking. no decision is a decision, and it’s usually the worst one to make.”

The Art of Clear Thinking pulls you in like the G-forces of a fighter jet. Entertaining and profound, Hasard takes you on a heart-pounding journey through life-or-death stories woven with the critical, decision-making tips taught to elite fighter pilots. This book will sharpen your ability to stop, see clearly, and make the key choices that may change the entire course of your future." —Harvey, Karp, MD, FAAP, CEO, Happiest Baby, Inc., Author Through his first seven chapters, each rife with anecdotes and references he is able to validate with detailed endnotes at the end of the book, he comes up with a summary list of five points, and then ten chapters later, the list has grown to eight practical points. Clearly, repetition is a good way to ensure that one is thinking clearly about a subject. The list: It's just how we're wired. But it doesn't have to stay that way. This book gives you the tools to clear the fog from your eyes and simply think smarter. Choose: generating potential courses of action & assessing their expected value based on the given constraints