by I C Robledo
The principle is not difficult to understand. Consider someone who is at any competition, who uses no strategy, and who always goes directly for the objective with no regard for how to handle the obstacles that are on that path. This person is likely to lose. The one who considers all of the obstacles and engages in calculation and planning to circumvent them will tend to prosper, and prosper greatly against the one who does not even have a plan.
As often is the case, this principle will center on knowing what type of questions to ask. For example:
What is the biggest problem I am facing and that needs immediate attention?
What can I do to stop the progress of my competition? Is there a way I can mislead my competition (such as to make them think I am strong when I am weak, or vice versa)?
For the actions I am planning, what are the most likely reactions or consequences? Are any of those consequences likely to cause me more problems?
Where is the best place for me to position myself, or my subordinates, to produce the biggest effect? (for example, in The Art of War, Sun Tzu recommended to position oneself above the enemy in battle, such as on a hill to gain an advantage)
How deeply have I, my colleagues, or competition thought through the problem? (Hint: a principle of chess is to think one move deeper than you think you need to. You will find it useful to do the same in your real life problems to avoid surprises).
Of course, these questions may be a bit broad for your specific goals. But you should be able to adapt them to a wide range of situations and problems.
Benefits of the Principle
As Sun Tzu said, those who analyze more deeply will win. For most people, this is a good enough benefit. When you calculate further, you will perceive further, and see further into the future possibilities than those around you. You will have the advantage. Someone who didn’t calculate will be blindsided, surprised by every commonplace obstacle that comes their way. Failure targets the unprepared, whereas success targets the well prepared.
As we all know, sometimes it is more important to work together as a team, and sometimes it is more important to focus on undermining the competition. This principle can apply in both cases. For example, in today’s world we often work in teams. If you have a team or group that you help with your analytical abilities, the principle may be viewed as collaborative and competitive all at once. By analyzing deeply, you would be able to help your team and hurt the competition at the same time. When used in this way, the principle can be especially powerful.
Keep in mind that calculating and analyzing is not easy work. Many of us avoid it because it takes a great deal of mental energy. For example, how many times have you heard someone say “I’m not very good at math”? People are often weak at calculating and analysis, because they specifically avoid doing it as a matter of habit. But if you can train yourself to become good at it, you will likely become indispensable. If your analyses lead to accurate predictions and successful outcomes, whoever you are working with will never let you go.
If you think this is a skill which only applies to chess or warfare, or obscure areas, that is not the case. The skill of calculating, analysis, and ultimately judgment can transfer broadly to other areas. For instance, you may find it interesting that some top chess players have turned to working as expert Wall Street investors and analysts.
Consider Boaz Weinstein, a Chess Master who manages a hedge fund and also has a reported net worth of 450 million dollars. Clearly, it isn’t possible for Weinstein to calculate every single possibility in chess or with stocks. But this is the same situation we are all faced with in daily life problems. Although to Weinstein’s credit, he was able to transfer his calculating abilities from the board, over to analyzing stocks and predicting which ones will perform better than expected. Keep in mind that the skill of calculating and analysis can apply as widely as you are willing to take it.
How to Apply the Principle
Fight through the mental fatigue
Calculating, by nature, requires mental work and effort. Many of us may prefer to take action than to sit and think through every possibility. Mental fatigue can set in rather quickly, and rather than calculate, the easier option seems to be to make a quick judgment call, even if we have not carefully analyzed every option available to us, and the potential consequences. This can be a disastrous mistake. Sun Tzu would remind you that in the battlefield, it will cost many lives. You must understand when you are in a serious situation, and keep in mind that a hasty ill-thought decision will have consequences. The effort and mental strain you put up front will be worth the rewards you receive later on. Likewise, the quick action with little thought will not be worth the grave consequences that may come later.
Train the body to strengthen the mind
As offbeat as it may sound, you may choose to train physically to help keep your mental stamina up. This will help you to be able to calculate as long as necessary to come to a correct solution. Bobby Fischer, former world chess champion, was sometimes laughed at for his response to how he trained for a chess tournament. He claimed, on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971, that a big part of his training was physical. He liked to run and swim, but he claimed it was to keep in top physical shape to play chess. After the laughter subsided, he explained that to sit still for four to five hours at a tournament actually required a lot of stamina. To have the mental focus to make good chess moves for that long is not easy. Apparently, his peak physical conditioning helped him to stay in peak mental condition, which helped him make deep calculations, great moves, and win the World Chess Championship in 1972.
You may be interested to learn that researchers have found a strong link between exercise and brain functioning. For example, here is an excerpt of an article by Harvard Health, “Regular exercise changes the brain to improve memory, thinking skills”:
Exercise helps memory and thinking through both direct and indirect means. The benefits of exercise come directly from its ability to reduce insulin resistance, reduce inflammation, and stimulate the release of growth factors—chemicals in the brain that affect the health of brain cells, the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance and survival of new brain cells.
The evidence shows that adding an exercise routine to your schedule could help promote intellectual abilities, or to help keep them from declining.
Follow through on planning and taking action based on your calculations
As you analyze problems and situations, you will sometimes find that there is great potential for disaster. You will foresee a big danger that could happen. You can’t be certain that it will happen, but you can’t take the risk, because if it does then it would ruin all of your plans. When you notice these dangers, these cracks that you don’t want to fall in, you must form contingency plans, or what we often call backup plans. It is foolish not to calculate at all. But perhaps the only thing more foolish is to calculate, and then not prepare for the dangers you have identified. If you notice big potential issues, you must form plans, or backup plans to deal with them if they should arise.
Do a post-mortem analysis
Every day, thousands of students will receive grades back from a big exam. Some will get A’s, but many will get B’s, C’s, or worse. The interesting thing is that many of those students who did not receive an A, will glance at their grade and put it away. They know the grade, so this is all that matters, right? They can’t change the grade now, so it only seems practical to forget about it. Actually, after a failure, or even results which were not quite the best, this is the perfect time to do a post-mortem analysis. This means to analyze any mistakes that were made, and how you could have done better. Of course, this is the least likely time most people will want to analyze, because they are tired of the material. But in fact, it can be the greatest learning experience. Do the post-mortem analysis while the task is still fresh in your mind. Do not wait too long. It will be especially helpful to ask someone more knowledgeable than yourself to help. Thi
s applies to any project, not just school grades.
Secret Principle #25 : Think in Terms of Analogies
“Growth comes through analogy, through seeing how things connect, rather than only seeing how they might be different.”
– Albert Einstein German-born theoretical physicist.
Geniuses Who Applied the Principle
Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton
Description of the Principle
You are probably already aware of what an analogy is. It is simply a comparison between two things that are alike in some way. They can often be especially helpful for understanding something new. When trying to make sense of something new and unfamiliar, people often have no point of reference to understand something, so it is important that they be able to build a connection with a topic that they are already familiar with. However, analogies are not only useful with learning about new areas. They can also be useful to understand a known topic in a different or deeper way.
As an example of an analogy, one I have heard is that human bodies are like cars. If one part of the car fails, the whole system will often fail to work. And it is the same with a human body. If one organ fails, the whole system will often fail to work properly. But keep in mind that analogies are not meant to work perfectly. They often don’t. The point is to quickly build an understanding of how different topics relate. If you do look for exceptions or loopholes in analogies, you will probably find them, and that is okay. They still serve their purpose. In the human – car analogy, for example, human bodies are obviously different than cars. A human body is capable of healing and self-repair to a certain extent, and a car is not. Humans are alive, and cars are not. Also, for either humans or cars, it isn’t always the case that when one thing fails, the whole system will fail. For example, the human body can function without an appendix, and a car can still function with broken tail lights.
Benefits of the Principle
Albert Einstein used an analogy to help explain a difficult idea, relativity. He said: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.” This was a brilliant comparison, because Einstein is usually seen as working on the most difficult problems in physics, and believed to do work most of us would not expect to fully understand. Yet he managed to explain relativity in a very simple way. Of course, his analogy will not fully explain the phenomenon, but for someone who is new to understanding relativity, his short explanation can be a lot more meaningful than a weighty and thoroughly explained academic text would be.
When you need to explain something in the simplest way, for a child or for someone who works outside of your field, analogies can be one of the best ways to do so. Keep in mind that many people either cannot handle all of the details involved in a difficult problem, or they are simply uninterested in them. An analogy can be a powerful way to concisely explain how something generally works. It is short, simple, and most importantly, highly effective.
Analogies work very well with keeping things simple (Principle #20). Using good analogies is about finding the ones that are simple and effective. This is useful not just for explaining things to others, but also to help you understand your own field, or related topics, in a new way. Analogies can help you to build up unique connections, and ultimately a greater understanding.
How to Apply the Principle
Think beyond your industry to find interesting analogies
Practice thinking about how aspects of your field relate to other industries. But don’t limit yourself to thinking just of other work industries. Allow yourself to explore entirely new directions. Let your thoughts drift into thinking of nature, the planets and stars, movies you’ve seen, and so forth. Do not limit yourself, and you may discover some interesting analogies that help advance your understanding of your own field. Many of us think we understand everything we need to know about our work and our expertise. But if you seek unique and interesting analogies, you may find that your perspective of your work shifts entirely.
Make something easier to understand
If you frequently have trouble explaining a topic to people, this is an excellent time to search for analogies that may be helpful. In fact, you could try telling a story that is based on an analogy. For example, an editor might explain what he does to a construction worker this way:
You know when you’ve finished your construction work, but there is still a mess? There are still random materials lying around that don’t belong, like sawdust, maybe half drunk soda bottles, and other junk. Someone needs to go back and clean up the excess junk that isn’t needed, to make sure the final work is well-polished and presentable. That is what I do as an editor for writers.
When you break down a new topic by comparing it to a much more familiar one, you will make it much easier for people to understand your message.
Secret Principle #26 : Take Multiple Perspectives; There is Seldom One Right Way
“I believe everyone should have a broader picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.”
– Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.
Geniuses Who Applied the Principle
Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Stephen Hawking, Arthur Schopenhauer
Description of the Principle
Consider the default perspective that you will have for your full life. Naturally, it will always be the perspective that comes from your own body, through your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin, and thoughts. It is normal to consider everything from this perspective. Thoughts that you may have as a result are “Am I hungry? Am I tired? What do I want to do today? Do my co-workers like me?” and so forth. Obviously, many of the thoughts we have will revolve around ourselves, which only makes sense, given that this is the main perspective we have.
However, this principle is really about gaining a wider perspective. It is about considering multiple viewpoints, and gaining a more accurate picture of a problem or situation. You may take into account the viewpoints of other people, for example, or even different ways to view a problem. Imagine if everyone thought the same way and used the same perspective. Some problems would be very difficult if not impossible to solve. Instead, we need to be open to perceiving a problem in different ways.
Benefits of the Principle
We often get locked into one perspective. We get used to thinking in one way all of the time, and so it becomes an old habit, and it can become increasingly difficult to perceive reality in a different way. But when you do extend beyond this, and start to open up your point of view, you will start to perceive something much closer to reality. Keep in mind that the reality of a situation isn’t usually based in a single perception. Instead, it is often based on taking into account as many perspectives as possible. The more perspectives you can understand, the better you will be at forming a full picture of a problem in your mind.
When you expand your ability to see multiple viewpoints, you will also be able to deepen your understanding of humanity. Sometimes, we are quick to judge others, but when we truly make an effort to understand different viewpoints and perspectives, we will tend to become less judgmental and more receptive to other ways of thinking and viewing the world. In this greater understanding, you are much more likely to become a better communicator, more persuasive, and more diplomatic. These are qualities good in themselves, but also good for getting results. If all you can do is antagonize people, and try to convince them that they are wrong and you are right, you will not make progress. Progress is made through understanding the perspective of others, and communicating to them in a way that takes their perspective into account.
As an example, consider the famous Indian parable (translated by John Godfrey Saxe) about six blind men who are presented with an
elephant. But never having seen one, they do not know what it is. So they begin to feel it in different places.
"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.
"Oh, no! It is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.
"Oh, no! It is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
The men began to argue with each other about what the elephant was, when a wise man passed and told them that they were all correct. But actually, it was all one creature and they had all felt a different part of it. The blind men understood then, and stopped arguing.
Often, we have an understanding of something, and we are completely sure of ourselves. The reason to expand perspectives isn’t because we are wrong. But sometimes, there are many correct perspectives, and in order to gain the most full and accurate picture, we have to consider those different viewpoints.
How to Apply the Principle
Consider different types of perspective
One way to shift perspective is to keep in mind many different perspective types that you can take into consideration. Here are some examples of different systems you can think through to expand your perspective. Macro (big) versus micro (small). Personal versus public. Economic motives versus philanthropic motives. Time periods (medieval, renaissance, modern, etc.) or in terms of cultures or locations (Asia, Europe, America, etc.).