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“An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for see the bright side of everything.” DR. DANIEL KAHNEMANWhile this means changing your disposition is unlikely there is lots of room in all of us to change how we think about problems.It is safer to WORRY ABOUT YOUR MODE OF THINKING than trying to change your disposition. Evidence of past crisis survivors shows in extremis the failure to think clearly is the cause of tragedy and loss of life. How you think about problems for a safer life applies equally to optimists and pessimists and according to Nobelist Kahneman you have two thinking system - Fast and Slow and this makes all the difference.UNWARRANTED OPTIMISM IS YOUR ACHILLES HEELI will look at this question from my personal experience as an optimist who always saw the bright side of life and yet witnessed first hand in my work in Manihiki the pit fall of too little thinking slow and too much thinking fast.If you are an optimistic person like me you may be living in a 100 year flood zone or sometimes taking the unwarranted risk of skiing out of bounds or buying lottery tickets as the prize and odds increase. This behavior is about your mode of thinking as much as anything.I will illustrate how your mode of thinking in a crisis can be life threatening by recounting two major survival stories at sea where bad thinking caused deaths.Manihiki atoll is a ribbon of very small islands circling a big lagoon that big sharks cannot broach. The land is so narrow that when we played softball my hard hitting home run companion Elder College could reach the water which ever way we organized the ball field. When our island was devastated by lack of supplies this food shortage caused by so little land adequate for growing food compelled the islanders to sail away to Rakahanga Island where there was much more land and produce.Manihiki has a famous history with the visits of Robert Louis Stevenson in the 1800s - not to be out done my sea story features Queen Elizabeth taking account of the Manihiki humanitarian tragedy of 1963.Figure 5 Photographer unknown (Lloyd Osbourne?) (from The Cruise of the 'Janet Nichol'), The King of Manihiki in the centre, with the Island Judge on his right and Tin Jack, seated, on his left. The man squatting in the foreground is one of the beach-combers, photograph, c.1890. Source: Stevenson 1914. Reprinted with kind permission of the Writer's Museum and City of Edinburgh Council.The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol"Mr. and Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson on the bridge of the "Janet Nichol"6th.—Sighted Manihiki at half past twelve, an outlying, low coral island with enclosed lagoon, very thinly wooded with cocoa-palms and pandanus trees.Quiros, the first Spanish navigator of the Pacific, gave to an island the name "Gente Hermosa" (Beautiful People), which has always been ascribed to Olesenga or Quiros Island; but since the memory of man Quiros has been uninhabited until the advent of the American Jennings. It is very possible that the navigator meant Manihiki, or its neighbouring island Rakahoa, as the isle of beautiful people. It is significant that Manihiki is always conspicuously marked on even the smallest maps of the world, no doubt from the fact that its delightful people have attracted so much attention[39]from seamen that the place has acquired an artificial importance out of all proportion to its few square miles of reef.The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol"This one minute video verifies Gente Hdfmosa ( Beautiful People)0:29 / 1:33Cook Islands Te Maeva Nui - Manihiki ura pau15,977 views Feb 28, 2013http://www.rarolens.com - A short video from the 2012 Te Maeva Nui (Constitution Celebrations) on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands showing the outer island of Manihiki and their ura pau (drum dance). Manihiki was awarded an A grade for this dance.When I first saw Manihiki after a very uncomfortable trip on a too small trading boat for 4 days and night without refrigeration I was stunned at the simple beauty. The elegance and colors mesmerized me.Here is what I wrote in my diary Jan 12, 1963:“As to Manihiki my first sight of the as we approached by ship, was as though I was seeing some fantasy not of this imperfect world. We first saw two small uninhabited islands of the atoll. The swaying palm trees were arising out of a most luscious growth of deep green plants. It was approaching dusk and the sun was reflecting on the surf as lazily rose and then surely crashed against the coral reef before spreading like a brilliant white table cloth until it disappeared into the inviting land. It was wonderfully breathtaking.”Manihiki is surrounded by waves breaking on the coral reefs like a brilliant necklace.WASHED INTO THE SEA BY CYCLONES“Despite its much smaller population, the Northern Group is probably most at risk of loss of life: as Cyclone Martin in Manihiki, the ca. 1590 cyclone in Pukapuka, the February 1942 cyclone in Suwarrow, and others have demonstrated, a storm surge can raise sea level sufficiently to cause waves to wash completely over the low-lying atolls. Because evacuation of these remote atolls during the approach of a cyclone is not an option, reducing the inhabitants’ vulnerability hinges on properly situated and constructed cyclone shelters and timely warnings.”The potential value of Cook Islanders' oral histories for gaining insights into cyclones before Europeans' arrival is suggested by three events in ca. 1590, 1665, and 1785 as written down by Gill (1894) and Beaglehole and Beaglehole (1938). The ca. 1590 cyclone produced a storm surge that killed almost all of the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants of Pukapuka (Beaglehole and Beaglehole 1938).Today Pukapuka has an airstrip but is still like Manihiki very narrow and flat.Unwarranted optimismSeduced by the beauty of my surroundings and the friendliness of the Polynesians I paid no heed when the friendly Polynesians told me that Manihiki was once called ‘Danger Island’ because of the risk of being washed out to sea by big storms. Indeed it is true that Manihki has a devastating history of loss of life when a storm is so strong that it washes over the the island destroying everything and everybody.The Northern Cook Islands Pukapuka Penryhn and Manihiki had been demolished by waves many years ago they said. In each case the atolls did not have enough land and were too flat. When storms hit they can cover everything and wipe out all life on the island for a few days.I am a very optimistic person and I ignored the fears of big storms happening while I lived there. WHY?There had been only two storms in 100 years that wiped everyone so I didn’t think statistics were against our safety. Yes, I have skied out of bounds. I didn’t research it, but I just used my fast brain to create a story that took away the problem. I was lucky in 1963 there was no major life threatening storm as happened just 30 years later when Cyclone Martin washed everyone into the sea.My optimism to ignore the fear of being washed to sea is just like the millions of people who knowingly ignore the risk of living within the 100 year flood plains.41 Million Americans Live in Flood Zones -Three Times the FEMA Estimate, Finds New Study41 Million Americans Live in Flood Zones -Three Times the FEMA Estimate, Finds New StudyWHY DO WE HAVE THIS UNWARRANTED OPTIMISM?Here is what I missed by using on system 1 -WYSIATI: What you see is all there is.Kahneman writes extensively about the phenomenon of how people jump to conclusions on the basis of limited information. He has an abbreviation for this phenomenon — WYSIATI — “what you see is all there is.” WYSIATI causes us to “focus on existing evidence and ignore absent evidence.” As a result of WYSIATI, System 1 often quickly creates a coherent and believable story based on limited evidence. These impressions and intuitions can then be endorsed by System 2 and turn into deep-rooted values and beliefs. WYSIATI can cause System 1 to “infer and invent causes and intentions,” whether or not those causes or intentions are true.“System 1 is highly adept in one form of thinking — it automatically and effortlessly identifies causal connections between events, sometimes even when the connection is spurious.”This is the reason why people jump to conclusions, assume bad intentions, give in to prejudices or biases, and buy into conspiracy theories. They focus on limited available evidence and do not consider absent evidence. They invent a coherent story, causal relationships, or underlying intentions. And then their System 1 quickly forms a judgment or impression, which in turn gets quickly endorsed by System 2.As a result of WYSIATI and System 1 thinking, people may make wrong judgments and decisions due to biases and heuristics.There are several potential errors in judgment that people may make when they over-rely on System 1 thinking:Law of small numbers: People don’t understand statistics very well. As a result, they may look at the results of a small sample — e.g. 100 people responding to a survey — and conclude that it’s representative of the population. This also explains why people jump to conclusions with just a few data points or limited evidence. If three people said something, then maybe it’s true? If you personally observe one incident, you are more likely to generalize this occurrence to the whole population.KahnemanTHE DAY THE ISLAND WAS ALMOST WIPED OFF THE MAPOn the afternoon of 1 November, 1997 - the first day of the hurricane season - cyclone Martin smashed huge waves through the villages and lagoon of Manihiki. 19 people died and 400 were evacuated to Rartotonga by the Royal New Zealand Air Force. 10 others were missing and in 2004 they too were officially declared dead.One report* described the terrifying day: "Housing was flattened, public facilities destroyed, crushed coral roads washed-out, and virtually all of the off-shore accommodation and equipment relating to the lagoon pearl-fishing industry was destroyed. Small boats, timbers and household contents were strewn everywhere, and sheets of cast-iron roofing were wrapped like tape around high trees. Sunken debris littered the edge of the lagoon to a distance of about 30 metres." And at one stage, there were serious discussions about abandoning the island altogether.For years, pieces of boats, tyres, trees and even fridges lay on the bottom of the lagoon, but a big clean up in 2017 removed much of the debris, along with a lot of abandoned pearl farms, lines and other equipment* Extract from "Observations from a Cyclone stress/trauma assignment in the Cook Islands"AJW Taylor Ph.D, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand. Photo: Cook Islands NewsSevere Tropical Cyclone MartinCategory 3 severe tropical cyclone (Aus scale)Category 3 tropical cyclone (SSHWS)Cyclone Martin near peak intensity south of Manahiki on November 3Formed October 27, 1997 Dissipated November 5, 1997Highest winds 10-minute sustained: 155 km/h (100 mph)1-minute sustained: 185 km/h (115 mph)Lowest pressure 945 hPa (mbar); 27.91 inHgFatalities 28Damage $8 million (1997 USD)Areas affected Cook Islands, French PolynesiaPart of the 1997–98 South Pacific cyclone seasonThe dangers of unwarranted optimismMy post recounts a tragedy and loss of life in Manihiki in 1963 when I was 21 working there as a missionary without pay, that came to the attention of Queen Elizabeth because of the courage of one islander, my friend, Teehu Makimare. The Queen personally awarded him the STANHOPE MEDAL OF BRAVERY with his visit to meet her in London.Teehu’s survival story illustrates in my view a powerful lesson about living safely based on the research that your mode of thinking is often the key to staying safe whether you are an optimistic or a pessimistic person.My story looks at understanding a crisis at sea by using the lens and wisdom of the famous book, THINKING FAST….THINKING SLOW winning the Nobel prize in economics by author psychologist Dr. Daniel Kahneman of Harvard University. I will relate research of Kahneman to the tragic loss of life in Manihiki when the captain of an ill fated boat ignored the advice of his crew.Unwarranted optimism is the achilles heel in leadership and government causing untold harm during a crisis as proven by many survival stories. The problem begins with the reality that the majority of well liked people especially leaders are statistically more optimistic than pessimistic. The issue is how do they temper their unfettered optimism with the reality of the challenges during a crisis?“The central idea of this book, “Thinking fast and slow” is a about research into two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking.From framing choices to people's tendency to substitute an easy-to-answer question for one that is harder. Framing is also a key component of sociology, the study of social interaction among humans. The book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgment. He explains with the concept he labels What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI). This theory states that when the mind makes decisions, it deals primarily with Known Knowns, phenomena it has already observed. It rarely considers Known Unknowns, phenomena that it knows to be relevant but about which it has no information. Finally it appears oblivious to the possibility of Unknown Unknowns, unknown phenomena of unknown relevance.He explains that humans fail to take into account complexity and that their understanding of the world consists of a small and necessarily unrepresentative set of observations. Furthermore, the mind generally does not account for the role of chance and therefore falsely assumes that a future event will mirror a past event.” WOPTIMISM FROM THE BOOK -Manihki in the Cook Islands is beautiful like a necklace very thin - no much land for crops.My OPTIMISM GONE WRONG story happened in 1963 on the remote island of Manihiki in Northern group of the Cooks. I was working as a missionary. The island is a very small yet beautiful atoll with a large lagoon. Life was primitive with no electricity, running water, stores, vehicles or hospitals etc.Until you live off grid you do not realize how much the comfort and security of life comes from the advantages instant grid electricity. As Manihiki is just South of the equator it has 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of nighttime when power is most needed.Also because of the outside fires burning coconut husks to cook with, the islands air pollution is visible and uncomfortable. As you walk through the village in the morning your eyes smart from the acrid breakfast smoke everywhere.This is modern photo of ancient cooking at the Polynesian Culture Center in Oahu employed by every family everyday on Manihiki.Making coral cement by hand means spewing harsh smoke for days.I am helping my self sufficient Polynesian friends make coral cement by hand by burning palm logs over a number of days. Not good for your lungs.Our survival depended on for the supplemental necessities of food and medicine coming from the monthly inter island boats bringing supplies from Rarotonga. These boats were often delayed and in early 1963, the boats failed to come for more than 4 months leaving us in rather desperate traits. All of the island ran out of everything - including flour, salt, sugar, canned meat, butter, instant potatoes, baby food and medicine etc. We all became hungry and tired forced to work hard each day to catch fish or climb for coconuts to eat.Our island decided as a community to take action and seek new sustenance by dividing the island into four blocks and sending four small pearl diving sail boats to the neighboring island of Rakahanga - a much bigger atoll and only 25 miles away. We divided the island into four and chose crews to sail four clumsy open pearl fishing boats.This picture is a likeness of the Tearoha lost at sea with survivors saved by Teehu. The pearl fishing boat is totally inadequate for more than a short journey.Rakahanga has three times the land base of Manihiki allowing it to grow much more staples including puraka a protein rich root crop like taro.RakahangaThere is much more and better land for growing crops in Rakahanga than ManihikiThe goal of sailing to Rakahanga was to bring back puraka a root crop like taro to add to our impoverished diet..This humanitarian mission created an unnecessary tragedy and loss of life. The boat named Tearoha for our part of the island was a tiny sloop, not longer than 16 foot, with a huge sail. It was barely seaworthy on the open ocean. Our boat manned with seven strong men was lost at sea.What happened when a storm slammed the boats return voyage back to Manihiki?The following passages are quotes from key pages Barry Wynne’s book, THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE, Chapter 2, Storm at Sea, that show what led to the tragedy in 1963 of the boat Tearoha is the Captain’s obstinance about a course change and the boats refusal to jettison the cargo of food for us at home.Three boats changed course as they left Rakahanga and took the extreme measure of throwing their precious cargo overboard to lighten their boats making it easier to sail to the wind. They succeeded in coming back. Out boat, Tearoha with Enoka as captain did not change course and did not throw away their cargo of food knowing how much it was needed back in Manihiki.But miraculously three of the sailors in our Tearoha boat survived over 60 days impoverished without water and finally landing 2000 miles away in the New Hebrides. Four of the seven died and Teehu Makimare, my close friend, is credited with saving the three remaining.Sadly these mistakes caused Tearoha to fail to return to us and the boat and its survivors became irretrievably lost at sea. We stayed all night burning fires in the hope our boat could see us and get back home but to no avail.Did Captain Enoka form a stereotype for the course back to Manihiki relying past performance ala System 1 thinking ignoring new conditions of the storm and the cargo? Teehu and the crew say the danger and tried to change his mind without success.Terrible sea storms have a long history in Pacific Islands and Manihiki in particular because the atoll is so narrow and flat. These storms can cover all of the land and wipe all inhabitants off the island except for a few who tie themselves to the top of trees. These storms are rare no more than once every century so far. The key reason Manihiki is so vulnerable is that land is so low and small that a big wave covers it all.THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIETeehu’s courage and the tragedy came to the attention of the world when Queen Elizabeth awarded the Stanhope Gold Medal for bravery to Teehu Makimare of Manihiki, Cook Islands in 1964. He was selected from all the Commonwealth for showing the most courage and leadership of the highest order.Also Barry Wynne wrote a book, THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE, commissioned by the New Zealand government telling the story in detail. The images here from his book.The Prime Minister of New Zealand’s wrote the FORWARD saying, The Pacific is noted for its epic voyages; Bligh of the Bounty; the Kon Tiki raft and most famous of all, those of our Maori people – the children of sunrise – voyaging from their homeland Manihiki.”The story is of the terrible ordeal of seven Polynesians lost at sea returning from Rakahanga and the heroic efforts of Teehu to save them. Why? Sadly the apparent reason is hunger but the real answer is leadership failure.That they, or at least some of them, managed to survive a drift of 2000 miles shows that the Ocean has kept its clement side, It is the lack of food and especially drinking water that killed four of the seven sailors slowly.Barry Wynne in his book recounting the tragedy, THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE, writes, "Teehu watched the other boats set course for Manihiki and immediately observed that they were all taking a far more easterly direction. He decided to speak to Enoka again: "There, Enoka, I told you the others are sailing much closer to the wind. They are right, we are wrong, let us change course and follow them or we will be blown to the lee of Manihiki and have trouble getting in." Enoka Dean flared in retaliation, "I am the captain of the boat. We were second into harbor on the outward journey: I know what I am doing. Get on with your job!" (Page 39)[Unwarranted optimism ignoring the trap of unknown unknowns “how the boats will sail loaded to the gunnels with vegetables?]Ten years later in 1973 I visited Teehu in Rarotonga.In the end Teehu was right Tearoha missed Manihiki and 60 days later beached on the shores of the New Hebrides 2000 miles away. Four men died of starvation. Three survived the terrible ordeal thanks to the heroic efforts of Teehu.Life is much safer on Manihiki today with the building of a new airport.Work starts on airport terminalWednesday April 25, 2018 Written by Rashneel Kumar Published in LocalPrime minister Henry Puna pictured at the offi cial handover of the land for the Manihiki airport terminal on Friday last week. 18042401Work on the construction of the Manihiki airport terminal has started following the official handover of the land last week.Prime minister Henry Puna, who was on the island, attended the event and thanked the landowners for allowing the government to use the land to build the terminal.The official handover of the land took place on Friday morning in the village of Tukao, where the airport is located.This is the new Manihiki air field adding safety to this vulnerable atoll. The photo shows how narrow is the land and how easy for a large wave to cover it completely.What happens in a sea crisis when the crew’s thinking is too fast too emotional and wrong?IN THE HEART OF THE SEA gives the answer. The failure of fast brain thinking may happen to the crew in a crisis while the captain may have it right thinking slow. This reversal of my Polynesian story is shown in the survival sea story of the Essex the real life Moby Dick tragedy and made into a movie, IN THE HEART OF THE SEA, produced by Ron Hunter.The Essex disaster is a riveting story of survival after shipwreck with an evocative lesson in flawed leadership when Captain Pollard’s ineptitude lets the crew override his plan to seek safety in the nearby Society Islands. Why? The crew feared irrationally the unfounded threat of cannibals at Tahiti.I submit they feared the unknown Tahiti and refused to think slow with the Captain about reality making a terrible decision that caused loss of life just the reverse of thinking by Captain Enoka on Tearoha from Manihiki.“All the sufferings of these miserable men of the Essex might, in all human probability, have been avoided, had they, immediately after leaving the wreck, steered straight for Tahiti, from which they were no very distant atthe time, & to which, there was a fair Trade wind. But they dreaded cannibals, & strange to tell knew not that …it was entirely safe for the Mariner to touch at Tahiti –But they chose to stem a head wind, & make a passage of several thousand miles (an unavoidably roundabout one too) in order to gain a civilized harbor on the coast of South America.”Quote from notes of Henry Melville in his copy of Chase's Narrative.Ref. See my Goodreads leadership failures review: The Man Who Refused To DiePOSTSCRIPT THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO DIE BOOK REVIEWWhat or who directed me towards this book, I cannot recall. Fact is that I finished the 158 pages of this read in only a few hours during a long weekend.The story recounts the terrible ordeal of seven inhabitants of the Cook archipelago who get lost at sea during a crossing between two neighboring islands. Their boat, a tiny sloop, not longer than 16 foot, with a huge sail, is barely seaworthy on the open Ocean. That they, or at least some of them, manage to survive a drift of 2000 miles shows that the Ocean has kept its clement side, It is the lack of food and especially drinking water that kills the sailors slowly.Written in 1966, I suspect the writer, Barry Wynne, to be a missionary or a preacher man of some kind. Much emphasis is laid upon the religiousness of the poor wretches. They are Seven Day Adventists who keep their sanity by praying continuously, give grace and implore God at each moment they find themselves in a dire situation. That is to say all the time.At certain moments, their luck seems to be directed by Jehovah himself; like when a whole colony of squids wash aboard with a rogue wave. I wondered for a moment if it was a Polynesian version of Saint Brendan, I was reading.While the survival is truly miraculous, the book has obviously been written as a religious pamphlet or a Sunday School morality play.Awkwardly enough the writer regrets that these fishermen have become too civilised and have lost the navigating skills of their forefathers. Lost, during the "civilizing" work of the different Christian factions, I would think.Still, the few pages describing the capsizing of their craft in the middle of the ocean and their herculean effort to right it again are of a nail-biting intensity and a disturbing realism.When the poor blokes finally wash upon a desert beach, genuine living dead crawling towards the shade of the first palm trees, you must be heartless if you won't get a lump in your throat.Macumbeira August 2, 2015CONCLUSIONWhy did Enoka make this tragic mistake of leadership?Did his leadership of the boat suffer from overconfidence and an unwarranted optimism? When he answered the crew’s concern that he needed to change direction and throw the food overboard by saying he had done well in guiding the boat on the in coming journey (known known) he seems to ignore the storm and the overweight of the food and the fact the other boats are heading in a different course? (unknown unknowns).A plausible explanation of the Manihiki tragedy is that Enoka was victim of the fast brain cognitive bias for optimism in crisis. Teehu and the crew on the other hand became concerned using their slow thinking system taking account of known unknowns – the storm and the overweight of food.Enoka placed too much confidence in his past experiences and refused thinking slow as Teehu urged.Is there anything we can do to avoid the pitfalls of fast thinking? Can our cognitive illusions be overcome? Kahneman answers that question. Remember despite its flaws, our System 1 works wonderfully most of the time (as in kicking the soccer ball or dancing etc.) and has gotten us to this point in the evolutionary game. In the book: “The best we can do is compromise: learn to recognize situations in which mistakes are likely and try harder to avoid significant mistakes when the stakes are high. The premise of this book is that it is easier to recognize other people’s mistakes than our own.”Think about this premise and Enoka who failed to listen to Teehu who surely saw his error. This is so important for leaders to understand that when you are captain it will be listening to your crew that is the only hope to prevent disaster from your fast brain mistakes!Enoka was likely a victim of his fast brain system and his cognitive and optimistic bias in the crisis moment. This mistake cost Enoka his life.Enoka’s generosity and sacrifice refusing to throw the food meant for us overboard to improve his chances of reaching home like the other 3 boats leaves me under a lifelong debt to do something useful with my life. I feel especially indebted to those like my Manihiki Polynesians who live off grid in the dark suffering energy poverty (> 2 billion worldwide.)