The Impact of Cognitive Biases on Our Lives

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The spotlight effect explains why we feel that there is a spotlight shining on us in public and social situations. Pre-conditioned fear of placing yourself in spotlight situations means you shrink yourself down from your true potential. We may never turn it off completely, but we could all benefit from dimming the spotlight.

The Spotlight Effect is a common psychological phenomenon where we overestimate the degree to which other people are noticing or observing our actions, behaviors, appearance, or results.

Pre-conditioned fear of placing yourself in "spotlight situations" means you shrink yourself down from your true potential. This is a tremendous drag on growth.

To fight back: (1) Develop an awareness of the Spotlight Effect and when it may hit, (2) Focus on being interested rather than interesting, and (3) Ask "So what?" to confront your fears.