The One Skill You Need to Supercharge Your Growth

My passion is equipping female leaders to define a new culture by trusting their own ability to think critically, create imaginatively and lead effectively.

Unfortunately, most of us aren't actually taught the skill of Critical Thinking - evaluating and analyzing information in order to form a belief or take action - yet it’s the one skill that will supercharge your growth.

Tune in to find out what Critical Thinking is, is not, and how to begin using it in your life, today.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

You're listening to Stand Tall and Own it, the podcast for high performing female leaders who are ready to make an impact by discovering the safety that comes from understanding their own value and exercising their own authority. I'm your host, andrea Johnson, and I'm here to tell you it is time to just truly be you, my strong friend. It's time to Stand Tall and Own it. Hi there, welcome back to another episode of Stand Tall and Own it. I am your host, andrea Johnson. Today, we are going to talk about something that I feel a little strongly about. Now. I know you're probably sitting there shaking your head and rolling your eyes like Andrea. Is there anything you don't have a strong opinion about? Yeah, there are a few things, but this is one of the things that drives me and drives my business. It's why I do what I do. Now, if you were to have me on your podcast or as a speaker or a teacher, I would send you my short bio, and the very last line of that bio says this my passion is equipping female leaders, or leaders in general, to define a new culture by trusting their own ability to think critically, create imaginatively and lead effectively, and I'm sure if you've listened to any of my other episodes here. You've probably heard me say that before, but I would like to dive into that a little deeper. Not the new culture. The new culture part is basically what I talked about for the first three years of this podcast under the name or under the title of intentional, optimistic, unconventional leaders, and it was all about defining a new culture for leadership, for women, especially in how we lead in that culture. Today we're going to talk about what it means to think critically. And before you turn it off saying, oh God, it sounds boring, trust me, it's about thinking for yourself.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Now, I don't know about you, but I was raised in a culture where we kind of weren't really taught to do that. We weren't really taught to do that in school. I was not taught to do that at church. I was most certainly not taught to do that in any of the other cultural interactions that I had. I was taught to trust certain people. I was taught to trust certain institutions that they would have the answers. Now we were told to think for ourselves. We were told you've got to learn to think things out, but the answers were almost always a foregone conclusion. And before you jump to the idea that maybe I was gaslit all my life. There's a certain amount of that that. Yeah, I think we are. I think sometimes and I'm not here to go negative and talk about any particular type of organization but I think we need to recognize that we are not equipped to think critically. Before I dive into what that means, I'm going to give you some definitions, because that's who I am and I found one that I like and then one that I absolutely love. So first let me tell you just a basic definition of to think.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Thinking critically is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment. So it's this objective ability to take the information in and evaluate it and analyze it in order to figure out what you think about it. But this is another one that I found that I absolutely love. I actually went and read the document. I'll tell you where it's from in just a second, ready for this one, it's a little bit longer. It says critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and or evaluating information gathered from or generated by observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or communication. Here's the kicker as a guide to belief and action. So all that says critical thinking is basically this disciplined process of taking in the information, analyzing it, visualizing it, applying it and figuring out how it's going to affect what you believe and how you act. Now that is from the University of Louisville and it's called Ideas to Action Plan. From what I could gather, it was something that they put together to help students think more critically.

Speaker 1: 4:27

I am all in. I wish that we taught this in all of our schools, and I have a son in high school. I'm pretty sure it's not taught. It's probably taught more now than it was back when I was in school, but it's not. And I think that this is a process that we it takes a little bit more intellectual intentionality. We're using a lot of big words, but I think it means that we have to be a little bit more intentional about making sure that we know what we're listening to, we know what we're believing, we know what kind of information we're taking in and where we're getting it all from. But let me tell you why I think this is important, and I'm going to use a John Maxwell quote. He says Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. So I'm going to apply that to thinking, critical thinking and taking in information. It's not just the gathering of information that's important. Even in that University of Louisville definition, it's not the information gathered is important, because we can all gather information.

Speaker 1: 5:33

I just had a lovely time this morning working with an entire group of leaders that are in a cohort working through a leadership type Academy, and one of the things we talked about was this myth of getting ahead because you've got a growth mindset and because you're listening to and attending leadership academies or leadership seminars and reading books. And I said how many people have a really long list of books? And they all raised their hands. I'm like how about you take one book, read it and then apply it for a quarter, and then you do another book and you read it and apply it for a quarter. It's not that any of those things are bad, it's just taking in information without doing anything with it. It's just gathering information. I hate to use words like lazy, because it's not, but there are ways in which it's lazy thinking and we have to be really careful. So before I tell you the four ways that I think you can use critical thinking in your life today, let me tell you what I think it's not, and these are important because these are the things that we really have to challenge in so many areas right now.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Critical thinking is not heresy. Okay, so for those of you who are raised in religious background, that's a word that you're going to be like oh, I may not know exactly what heresy means, but that's a bad thing, right? Yes, heresy is something that is that is an aberration or a changing of or kind of not quite to, what we would consider the orthodox understanding of something, for instance. It's considered to be a lie, but just off the truth. It doesn't have to be, and it's usually something that's on purpose, right? So it is not quote heretical.

Speaker 1: 7:17

It's not a bad thing to question stuff at all. As a matter of fact, we should question things. We should question anything that comes in our lives. We should question anybody's opinion. We don't have to be combative about it. It doesn't mean that we are questioning their ability to think or their expertise. But just because someone is in a position of authority, just because someone comes across the news channel, just because someone is on a podcast or a radio show, just because someone is standing at the front of your class, doesn't mean that you don't need to question some of what they say, and I think it's just important for us to remember that If you need the permission to question things, email me at Andrea, at the Intentional Optimist, I will write you a permission slip. I will write you a permission slip to question everything. You know, I said before on here that I am an Enneagram 6, wing 7, and we're doing another study in my church about it. But one of the things about 6 is that we question everything and it just to me, it is a healthy curiosity. You need to make sure that you know what's coming in and it's okay.

Speaker 1: 8:29

So critical thinking is number one. It's not heresy, I got four of these. It's also not introspection. Introspection is looking at yourself. Introspection is understanding why you think and who you are. Critical thinking is how you apply all of that stuff. Introspection is all about me and what's going on. Critical thinking is how I apply all of those things and it's a thinkery kind of process. It's all about thoughts. It's not necessarily. It's not about feelings, obviously, because it's gosh, what did that? Sorry, I'm gonna scroll back up here in my notes and look. It's literally. It's an intellectually disciplined process. So it's not necessarily introspection. That can be reflection, and reflection on things can help you with critical thinking, but it's not introspection.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Number three it's not just analysis, that's information gathering, or that's actually looking at the information you have gathered let me put it that way because that's also a good piece of it but that's not truly critical thinking. You can analyze something and say, well, these are the parts. My son's really good at taking things apart and he's like these are all the parts. I'm like, but can you put them back together? No, but I might be able to make something new. That's more of what critical thinking is.

Speaker 1: 9:50

He did this recently. He got a Star Wars Lego several years ago I wanna say it was a X-wing fighter or something and he'll take it. He'll put it together exactly as the instructions say and then he's really excited and he'll display it for a while and then he'll take it all apart and all those Lego parts get dumped into the big bin of Legos. Every once in a while he'll start going through and pulling out. Granted, he does this y'all. He does this on the floor, so you cannot walk in his room without getting your feet impaled on Legos or Lego. Excuse me, but he came down the other day with I created a new. You ready for this? A new Star Wars vehicle. Would you like to see it? Why? Yes, I would thank you very much. And he had. He had created something that had all of the same attributes that a lot of the Star Wars vehicles have. It had wings that folded up. It had a speeder that could launch off of it. He took the pieces that he had, the information that he had. He analyzed it, it made a thing, he took it apart, he analyzed it again and he made something new.

Speaker 1: 10:58

That's a really good visual of what critical thinking is. It's not just the analysis. That's not it. You have to do more with it than just the analysis. The other thing it's not and this is something that I think a lot of people automatically hear is that it's cynical. It's cynicism. Critical thinking is not cynicism. I think it can lead to it. I think it can become negative if you want, but true critical thinking is understanding the difference between a trusted source or a trusted institution when there's the bird being willing to question those things. Right, true critical thinking is skillfully conceptualizing, applying and analyzing and synthesizing. It has nothing to do with being cynical. It just means that you know that not everything that's gonna come across your desk or your plate or through your TV. Not everything is as it seems. It's our job to take that and do something with it when that happens in the workplace.

Speaker 1: 12:03

When I talk about women creating a new culture and we're in this culture of it's not just women, but we're in a culture that says certain things have to be done certain ways and there's certain things that look professional and mean professional and the reality is those are cultural things and they're of one particular demographic of culture. We might need to think critically about that and make some changes, because the goal of critical thinking is to affect our beliefs and our actions. Okay, so that's the goal. The goal of critical thinking is to affect our beliefs and our actions. So here are four ways that you could use critical thinking today. Right, if you wanted to say, all right, I'm gonna get off this podcast and I am gonna go use my critical thinking skills. How do I do it, andrea? Well, here's how you do it. This is four. There are probably 44,000 more that you could do today, but I'm gonna give you four because they relate to what I speak about.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Number one you use critical thinking to evaluate your own ABCs, your own assumptions, beliefs and conditioning. When you are presented with an assumption that has yet to be examined, it's time. It's time. Just take it as a sign to I'm gonna think critically about this, I am going to break it down and figure out, I'm gonna analyze it and I'm gonna look at how this affects people and how this affects me and I'm gonna examine it and then I am going to either keep it or I'm going to change the way I believe and act regarding that assumption or regarding that belief. Be aware, this is your conditioning that has caused you to be there. It may be that your conditioning is to not think critically. That is like a very meta application of this particular topic. When your belief is challenged, it's time to question it. You may end up with the same belief when you're done, but then you know right when you're conditioned to do and feel certain things. This is a good place to employ your critical thinking skills today.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Number two reflect and evaluate on your experience. Now we all have them. I have a friend who has had a very difficult week and as she moves through the grieving process of this particular situation, she is going to have to figure out how she wants to believe and move forward. A lot of times, things will happen to us that don't really seem to have a good reason behind them, or they completely contradict everything that we thought was true. Well, this is a perfect opportunity to think critically and to analyze that information and decide. Am I going to make a different choice next time, or maybe I need to do some critical thinking in this and reflect and evaluate this experience in order to get better at something? Maybe I need to be better at something, or maybe I just need to understand different perspectives. These are all excellent ways to evaluate your experience. Reflect and evaluate on your experience using critical thinking skills.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Number three wade through that information media dump. Right that, everything that gets dumped on you every single day. Wade through it, because guess what, and you probably know this every news outlet has a bias. Let me say that again. Every single news outlet that you watch, that you listen to, that you read, has a bias of some sort. It may be a bias that confirms your belief. It may be a bias that offends your belief, but everyone has one. It may be a hard bias in one direction or the other. It may be that it's a bias towards certain things or away from certain things, but every news outlet, news media outlet, has a bias. If you are not aware of this, there is a really there's several of them out there that will compare the biases of different news outlets, but the one I like and I will put this in the show notes I don't know how to say it. I'm assuming it's ad fontes, ad fontes, f-o-n-t-e-s interactive media bias chart and when you click on that, it's interactive. You can make choices based on some of the things that you might want to filter out for, but I think you're going to be surprised at where certain news outlets fall.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Now. You may want to take in one from the left and one from the right and one from the editorial and one from the factual, but it's on this XY axis and it's really helpful. So, definitely, I'm including that. But you know that you're receiving and that's just news media, right? You know that you're receiving media and information from Instagram and TikTok and Facebook, loredy and Twitter X and or whatever it's called and YouTube all the places you need to take the ability that you have to think critically, to analyze, to evaluate, to scrutinize and to maybe compare in order to decide what am I going to believe about this thing and how am I going to act? Again, that's the definition is we analyze, we figure it out, we think about in order to understand what we believe about it and how we act. So that's three.

Speaker 1: 17:26

The fourth thing, the fourth area where you can use your critical thinking skills today is do your core values work. That's what I talked with this group of leaders about this morning is when you do your core values work, you are critically thinking about all the stuff that's ever come into your life and all of the things that you've ever responded, and you're trying to figure out what are the main things that have resonated for you in that process. And when you do your core values work and you figure out what your core values are, you can then it's a wonderful reciprocal environment and synergistic role of they help each other out. When you do your core values work, you know what they are. Then your core values. Well, you can then employ them to help you be a critical thinker. It is a wonderful little cycle to help you move along in ways that both help you grow and help you think better.

Speaker 1: 18:21

So one of the reasons I say that my passion is equipping female leaders to define a new culture by trusting their own ability to think critically is because I was not. I was not taught to think critically. Again, like I said at the very beginning, it's not that I was told not to think, but I actually believed that it was not okay for me to question certain aspects of my environment, certain institutions, certain documents, certain books, certain people, I even. I don't know if y'all know this, but I have two-thirds of a master's of divinity. I met my husband at seminary. I'm a good student. Like I said, I like to think. I'm a thinker-y kind of person. I love to analyze things.

Speaker 1: 19:11

You would think that this would be something that would just be natural for me, but I was having a conversation with my husband and two other pastors at one of our conventions. This is long, long ago, like I don't know, maybe I was 30. And I questioned one of the other pastors because I didn't agree, and so I questioned it and, instead of actually engaging me in conversation, this guy literally said you wouldn't understand, little lady. Fortunately and I'm just going to say this, whether you believe it or not is the grace of God is the only thing that kept me from engaging in that conversation and I was able to say to my husband I think I need to meet this person over there and I left. I wish at that point that I could tell you, from that moment on, I never let anybody else influence the way I thought. I wish I could say that, but I didn't, because, guess what? I had conditioning. I had assumptions, beliefs and conditioning that I hadn't worked through. So I'd like to know from you please let me know. This is something that I would love to engage on Were you raised to think critically?

Speaker 1: 20:21

Some people in some cultures were and have been, and I think kids are. There's certain, there are certain people who are trying to keep our kids from being raised to think critically, and there are certain areas where kids are really being taught to do that. But if you were not raised to think critically, how does this hit you? How does it feel? Is it scary? Does it feel like heresy? Does it feel like you're being cynical? I'd love to know, because at that point, now that you've heard that, what are you going to do with it? Now you might say gosh, andrea, I'm not really a thinker. You're a thinker. This, this should be natural for you, but it's not natural for me, and for me, just because I'm a thinker, you would think that, but it's not. I am totally conditioned to not think critically. So I still question myself as a question everything else, that's how it works, but the that is literally what the work is. So to to stand tall and own it. For me, to stand tall and own it basically means that I'm going to figure out where I landed. I'm going to stand there. I may not be doing it on social media, but I'm most certainly doing it in my family and in my church.

Speaker 1: 21:30

But you have to be willing to do the work to understand. I can't remember who it was, but maybe it's Jen Hapmaker, I think that's who it is. She was one of the first pieces per. She was one of the first people I listened to that really talked about thinking critically, and she talked about listening to people on the fringes, cause they're always going to be honest with you. The people who are at the at the middle of whatever society is are not going to be honest with you, and that really kind of changed the way I saw this and I thought okay, so even though I can't, it's not smart for me to just say whatever so and so says because they're an expert. I'm going to take this information, but it tells me that I can pull from a bunch of different sources and I can get the information that I need. But this is why I say over and over again it is so important that you understand you and your core values, because this is what it means to be you. This is how you learn to stand tall and own it, and I'd love to hear from you whether or not you were raised to think critically or not.

Speaker 1: 22:35

You can send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. You can email me at Andrea at the intentional optimistcom. If you're not on my newsletter, you can email me at Andrea at the intentional optimistcom, or just click on my website and pop up. Sit there for a minute and I don't know 15, 20 seconds and there will be a pop up and you can get on my newsletter and I'll share this kind of stuff with you there. If you're listening to this on audio and you didn't know that there's a video recording where you can see all the weird faces that I make. You can actually check us out over on YouTube. All of that stuff is going to be in the show notes. But again, my passion is equipping female leaders to define that new culture where we lift each other up and we move together by trusting our ability to think critically. I want you to be able to trust your ability to think critically, create imaginatively and lead effectively. This is how we stand tall and own it. So until next time, stand tall and own it.