Relatively is the source of all cognitive biases and most mistakes.

What is it? How does it work? How can you use it to get the most out of yourself?

Let’s take a look.

The classic example of relativity comes from grade nine physics.

If only the teacher could have told us that this concept would apply apply to nearly everything in life ... we might have payed attention.

A person is standing on a train holding a ball in their hand. The train is travelling at 60 miles an hour. How fast is the ball moving? The answer is “it depends.”

If you ask the person holding the ball, they’ll say “it’s not moving at all. It’s just resting in my hand.”

If you ask the person watching the train go by, they’ll say “it’s moving at 60 mph.”

What you see is relative to where you stand. Everything depends on your position. And so it is with life. You can’t fully understand any system that you’re apart of … Including yourself.

Consider the choices you made 5 years ago. While they might seem stupid in hindsight, they seemed logical at the time. The passage of time puts you on a different train.

Your future self will look back at your current self and see similarly stupid choices you’re making today.

You didn’t understand yourself then any better than you understand yourself today.

How can we use this universal principle in real life to get the most out of ourselves?

Here are three ways:

Lesson 1: Your perspective influences what you perceive as reality. When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense.

Perspective often comes from distance or time. If you’re trying to solve a problem and you’re stuck, try shifting your vantage point. If you’re running an important meeting, prepare by taking the perspective of everyone who will be in attendance.

Lesson 2: Often we put off doing things we should do, or we want to do. We put off the tough conversation. We put off contributing to our community, telling ourselves we’ll do it later.

When we eventually do these things, in hindsight, what does our future self say? “Man, I should have done that sooner.” Your future self would encourage you to do things before you’re ready to do them.

Lesson 3: Contrast is important. Most of us are in a red queen trap. To stand out relative to the competition you have to be just a little bit better. Small initial advantages compound into large gaps.

We often think someone is wrong because they see things from a different perspective than we do.

Relativity helps us understand there is more than one way to see everything. That doesn’t mean everyone’s perspective is equally valid, only that we can't see everything.

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