Ex Post Facto no. 6: Leadership and Candy Corn

I learned something strange yesterday. According to psychology research on cognitive dissonance, once we humans admit that we’ve been wrong about something we used to believe, our brains will often go back and revise our memories so that we actually believe we knew the right answer long before we actually did.

We believe we stopped believing in Santa earlier than we actually did. When we change our minds about important things at work—or about people who we judged wrongly—we often backdate the time we *actually knew it*, so that our brains can think of ourselves as more consistent.

Humans are strange.

I guess that means a year from now you might “remember” knowing this week’s ex post facto for ages! Either way, I think you’ll be glad to know these three things:

One EXcellent bit of wisdom

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
–Dr. Martin Luther King

Many people are sharing Dr. King’s quotes on peace and justice right now, for obvious reasons. But when we look at his body of work—including quotes like the above—a picture emerges of a man who didn’t just understand justice, but who also truly understood second-order thinking.

That is to say, MLK wasn’t just concerned about the consequences of the actions he took. He thought through the consequences of those consequences—because he understood that we’re more interconnected today than most of us realize. I think this concept (and that quote) is worth pondering as we contemplate how to move forward through what’s happening in the world right now.

One POST you’ll wish you’d read earlier

The 4 Rare Leadership Skills We Need For The Future Of Humanity & Business <— This one has very much to do with the quote above. Given the complexity and interconnectedness of our world today, I’d propose the 4 skills in this post are soon going to be even more important than the qualities we typically seek in our leaders.

I’d be really grateful if you read and passed this one along!

One FACT Of great interest

When you think of summer, what kind of candy comes to mind?

It turns out that Candy Corn—those yellow, white, and orange sweets you get around Halloween—was originally created as a summer snack. Brach’s advertised them as “Summertime Candies.”

That is, after the company first marketed them as “Chicken Feed.” Yep, that was the original name.

This newfangled candy was apparently targeted at chicken farmers who at the time (the late 1800s) would never think of eating corn themselves. Corn was for animals. So making candy in the shape of corn was hilarious to these farmers—and they bought lots of it.

I guess the equivalent today would be if Brach’s came out with candy that looked like canned dog food??? The thought of that weirdly cheers me up amidst all the turmoil going on right now.

Although… I’m pretty sure I already knew about that candy corn story a long time ago anyway. ;)

Have a good weekend—and be safe out there!

Shane