‘Seeing the Mountain’ is an entertaining and engaging weekly newsletter devoted to improving decision making and relationship skills by understanding the hidden world that drives actions and beliefs. The foundation of human behavior is minimizing risk in a universe of uncertainty, fallable memories, limited knowledge, limited experience, and human error. The newsletter features research and opinion from multiple academic disciplines as well as ‘real world’ perspectives.
About The Writer
Since my youngest days I’ve been fascinated with the (often) seeming irrationality of humanity. As a child it was the magicians’ skill with their audience that intrigued me. By my mid-teens I was drawn to folklore and other story telling about humans and their foibles.
My college years, and my three degrees, were heavily focused on human behavior and the marketplace — economics and marketing, with classes in law, humanities, statistics, ethics, and logic. During this time, contemporary urban legends and myths became a hobby of mine as I collected faxes and photocopies and saw how they morphed over time.
In the years following college my focus shifted to reading autobiographies as I researched how society changed and evolved through the 20th century. In my professional life I travelled extensively, consulting with all levels of governmental entities and with corporations on how to integrate new technology into their workforce. My travels took me to thirty three American states and four Canadian providences. In each workplace I informally surveyed the employees and management about their work culture and the culture of the community.
Eventually the traveling got old and I shifted my work toward helping companies integrate after mergers and acquisitions. Navigating clashing work cultures with stressed staff was instructional, but hard on the soul. It was during this time I focused my attention on tribalism research (in-group, out-group dynamics) and how it impacts individual behavior and society as a whole.
If I have any regrets in life it’s that I didn’t study tribalism in my 20s. It would be hard to overstate the usefulness of a deep knowledge about tribal behavior and hierarchies.
In the downtime following a vehicle accident, I turned my attention to researching the root of human behavior; the latest research coming from evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral genetics. To balance this focus on the base causes of behavior, I reintroduced philosophy into my reading as well.
If all of this sounds impressive, don’t be misled. The cost of a breadth of knowledge is the depth. There are academians who spend their entire lives delving deep into a sliver of just one of these academic specialities. Every article I write requires considerable time to research and verify with subject matter experts.
My hope for you, the reader, is that this newsletter will introduce you to concepts and information that will help you improve your professional and personal lives.
~ DJ Bowdish ~
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