I had an interesting interaction the other day about the song that is the title of this post. You know the song. It’s a great little tune that was released in 1973 (Editor: Seriously. 1973!). It is one of the quintessential soft-rock songs of the era and you can probably hear it at any piano bar in North America to this day. But this post is not an ode to the song.

 

                Do you know the singer of Piano Man? I do. It’s Billy Joel. You probably know a number of his more famous songs outside of just Piano Man. Uptown Girl. We Didn’t Start The Fire. Only The Good Die Young. They are all Billy Joel. Here is a funny thing, the person I think sings Piano Man? Elton John.

 

                I proved my failings yesterday in an online interaction. To make the long story short, someone made a really funny remix of the opening words to the Elton John Billy Joel classic that poked fun at President Trump calling himself a “Tariff Man”. It was witty and made me chuckle and I replied with an Elton John picture because Piano Man was definitely sung by Elton John. When the author gave me the “actually” with a picture of Joel instead I realized my error.

 

                In reality, it does not matter whether I think Elton or Billy wrote the song but it was a good lesson that facts hold very little power over emotion in our thinking. I associate a piano with Elton John. Who wouldn’t do the same thing? [Narrator: Probably huge Billy Joel fans] Factually the song is Billy Joel’s work but emotionally I made it Elton John’s ditty instead.

 

                This is a classic System 1 vs System 2 problem. Daniel Kahneman’s brilliant book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow” delves into the ways our brains actually work and he breaks things down into what he names as System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is the automatic, intuitive system that creates immediate reactions like thinking Elton John plays a piano so of course he wrote Piano Man. System 2 is the slower and analytical system. It is our reasoning and rational self that made me smack my forehead in contempt for not recalling Billy Joel as the true writer of the song.

 

                We all like to think we are the rational, clear-headed decision maker in all instances. Everyone fancies themselves a System 2 dominant person. The reality is that System 1 thinking has a far greater impact on all of us. News headlines are specifically designed to impact your emotional, intuitive system. That chyron that scrolls across the television on CP24 isn’t designed to give you the actual facts. It is designed to keep your System 1-self engaged to CP24. That obnoxious comment from an internet troll was only ever designed to keep System 1 occupied.

 

                How do we stop ourselves from making System 1 errors for things that are a proven fact? I have some bad news, we are never going to stop making errors based on intuition and emotion. It is how we, as humans, have been wired for thousands of years and no amount of Vulcan-like training can keep emotion from over-ruling fact from time to time. The key to improving your thinking comes from admitting your factual error and then changing the emotional state around that error. In my case, I was riding a high from my witty Elton John reply which came crashing down when the author corrected me (Thanks, Ben). That emotional gut punch of being proven wrong has now created an emotional reminder that Piano Man is a Billy Joel song even though I will always think of Elton John as the piano man.

 

                System 1 thinking plays a major role in our day to day decision making but learning to acknowledge its impact is an important step towards making sure System 2 thinking is also working for your benefit.