Question

Discuss a situation where you used critical thinking that worked for you. (250)

Answer 1

• Critical thinking is any form of thinking where you can demonstrate and justify how you came to your conclusion.
• 7 years ago, I had been umemployed for 2 years and was desperate. I finally found a “job” (straight commision, no guarantees, no benefits) selling vacuums door to door. I did ok, finally was making money again. I liked the people I worked with, and didn’t mind the work.
• I was out walking, admiring people’s nice yards and houses, and meeting new people. It was also a lot of rejection, but I could not focus on that usually.
• Now the office I worked out of, and the senior company people wanted me to stay. I liked them, and was comfortable. They claimed I had unlimited upside potential. If I reached higher levels in the company, my cost went down and commission went up. I could maybe open an office eventually and make tons of money.My intuition and common sense said I should do this.
• But I had started studying critical thinking and learning to apply it to solve problems. So I looked at it critically. I looked for evidence. This office hired like 10 people a month, and about 10 people a month quit. There were 5 people who were longterm, and all but one was always broke. They all rented rooms in other people’s houses, none of them owned a vehicle of any kind. The 6th had a 10 year old car, and owned a house, but she had to rent out two rooms to make the mortgage. And she was in the highest level of the company.
• So the evidence said, they had a vested interest in me staying, and longterm prospects weren’t as rosy as they claimed.So after 5 months I took my tiny bit of very challenging direct sales experience to a major car dealership, and leveraged it into a solid career, first selling cars, and then moving up to sales and then a finance manager position, which is a solid 5 figures a month, with benefits and stability.I used a ton of principles of critical thought first to get the job, then to master it, then to move up.