I had an idea for a Systems Thinking poster. It was to use the initials of the four fundamental elements of Derek Cabrera's DSRP model to visually communicate the essence of each at a glance. I shared a sketch, and the Cabrera's liked it! A few rounds of back and forth, and this is the final piece. 

​To go along with it, I also wrote my second blog post for Cabrera Research Lab!
https://blog.cabreraresearch.org/solv-prob-st

In late April, I discovered Cabrera Research Lab, and Derek and Laura Cabrera's fantastic work on Systems Thinking. Derek spent decades uncovering, distilling, and codifying the essence of how we think. He identified four fundamental elements of thinking that we all naturally do. However, knowing them and being able to name them and consciously apply them, well, it's just a game-changer for me.

How simple are they? They've taught them to kindergarten classes. How sophisticated are they? Derek and Laura both are professors at Cornell, and teach these concepts to grad students. 

I've been diving deep into their work, and sending them questions and ideas. They are true education pros, and have generously and enthusiastically answered every question. They have also enjoyed my thoughts on the subject (even though I'm a complete neophyte), and asked me to write a blog post about how I used their tools to solve a problem in my own life.

Here's my first blog post for Cabrera Research Lab! 
https://blog.cabreraresearch.org/solving-st

Here's a pdf of the index card setup. 

I had a colleague ask "Where can we go for the facts? I'd pay for truth."

Truth requires FIRST tuning your own radar and thinking skills. Only then can all sources be potentially valuable. They can be evaluated and integrated into your own mental models, ideally updating them to better match reality. Our mental models are ALWAYS at least partially incomplete and wrong, but we can strive to make them more correct.

How do we tune our radar and make our thinking better? How can we know what's true? It starts with you. Tell the truth the best you can (especially to yourself). Accept that we all know a lot less than we think we do (the world is much more nuanced and complex than we ever want to admit). Keep your eyes and mind open so you can regularly update what you think is true. Only then can you begin to trust yourself to discern what's true.

It's not about the source. It's about your ability to evaluate the information.