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How do we connect Thanks Giving with Critical Thinking?

First, we can recognize gratitude (giving thanks) as a neuro-spiritual tool – with benefits.

And we can recognize critical thinking as a tool towards good judgments and action.

So how do we connect these seemingly detached (thanks and thinking) ideas?

Critical thinking is a necessary part of most professions and vocations.  It is defined from facts, evidence, observations, and arguments.  For traditional valuation, these are:  data, comparables, and comparisons.  For today’s Evidence Based Valuation (EBV)©, these are data, market segments, and predictives.

Critical thinking requires the practice of skills and training in rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses.

Giving thanks requires thought.  Aha!  Our connection!

This leads to the question:  should good thinking include good thanking?  For successful, happy valuation professionals, asset analysts, it seems we have three critical elements for success.  One must:

  • Be good at this job;
  • Enjoy doing the work;
  • Feel a sense of satisfaction.

Personally, I have been blessed with some good education.  In the beginning, all my coursework was from the Appraisal Institute.  It was well-thought-out, organized, and mostly connected well with the practical aspects of pulling comps, field observation, comparing, and writing.  The writing courses in particular brought things together to a feeling of competence, joy, and even pride in being an important part of the property economics, homes, and investments.

Later, already an appraiser, I went back to school for graduate courses in economics, statistics, and computer information systems (amongst other related topics).  But my brain was already – “appraiser!”  Everything was from the valuation viewpoint, later from the “risk/reliability” viewpoint.  It was all more fun because the valuation mindset was the mindset.  It had to plug in on a practical basis.

I enjoyed blending the new theory, the new technology, with this different attitude.  My practice became more productive, more fun, and more rewarding ($$$).

The gratitude was easy.  The work came first.  The attitude of gratitude was built-in.

But is the reverse true?  Can gratitude thanking lead to good thinking?

During my entire career as an appraiser and litigation expert, I also belonged to, and followed the tenets of, another fellowship.  A practice where spiritual tools (like thanking) were of the essence.  I had some empirical, practical, and personal knowledge of the practice of gratitude in improving my life.

But is there any science behind this “art” of the spirit?

Some reading reveals that thankfulness, and the attitude of gratitude does have a science behind it:

  • It brings happiness, reduces depression, and strengthens resilience.
  • It improves health, blood pressure, energy, and reduces fearfulness.
  • It improves self-esteem, sleep, and clarifies thinking processes.

An ongoing, thinking state of giving thanks rewires the brain, in particular the prefrontal cortex.  This part of the brain affects behavior, personality and the ability to organize.

Critical thinking and Giving Thanks work well together.  Give it a try.

”WE MEASURE MARKETS, NOT COMPARE COMPS.“

Critical Thinking is part of the Valuemetrics.Info Curriculum.