people who don’t think have fluff in their head

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“People who don’t think probably don’t have Brains; rather, they have grey fluff that’s blown into their heads by mistake.”

—-

Winnie the Pooh

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Well.

I sometimes talk about sloppy thinking. Or lazy thinking. Or maybe even how sometimes people don’t think at all. The first two make my head explode. The last simply makes me sad.  And its the sad aspect I wanted to share a thought on today.

Look.

Sometimes it’s easier to just “do” and not think. Just to do what you are told to do and not think. The problem with that type of non-thinking thinking is that means you are truly at the mercy of someone else – physically in your actions and mentally in your thoughts. Even worse? If you don’t think you actually can begin getting out muscled even if you DO think. Huh? Your brain is a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets.

So. Over a period of time if you allow others to do your thinking for you, you will become that person that gets pushed around and bullied into doing things you don’t really want to do.  And no one really wants to be that person (and it is fairly easy to avoid).

Anyway.

All I really know about thinking has been taught to me by others. I once had an incredibly talented young woman employee (say early 20’s age wise). As a manager you kill to get someone on your team like this. Someone you know from day one will become better than you. This talented woman asked ‘why’ every time <and I mean ALL the time> I asked her to ‘do’ something. In addition, in a high % of the situations she would also question or challenge the logic beyond the task.

I admit. It could get frustrating on occasion.

I could get frustrated <and tired>.  She knew I would get frustrated sometimes and she worried I wasn’t happy with her performance.

So. We made a deal.

1. Sometimes she would just need to trust me and go do it.
2. She would never stop asking why or questioning. Never. <I made her promise>

My promise to her was there would always be enough hours in the day to answer and discuss anything she thought of. I would stay as long as she had questions <or I had no answers left>. While sometimes things just needed to get done we always made time to discuss thinking.

Anyway.

Thinking is at the core of progress & growth. Therefore, Pooh is correct. You must have grey fluff in your head if you choose not to think. Because it means you have purposefully chosen to make no progress or grow. Pooh was a smart bear.