1. YOURSELF
1.1. YOUR CHARACTER
1.1.1. VERACITY
1.1.1.1. Veritas lux mea. *"Truth is my light." * Be 200% honest with yourself. That's always where you will start fixing and improving things. You will face billions of decisions in your lifetime. The quality of your decisions will determine the quality of your life. And the quality of the life of your offspring. Start with facts first before emotions. Beware of biases. Don't try to justify what you believe, try to disprove what you believe. That's how the science advances in the world. The same rule applies everywhere. Hyper-realism is the best way to choose your dreams. Truth is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes. Everything starts with embracing the reality and dealing with it. Forget about the joy of being right, seek the joy of what is true. It is important to have thoughtful disagreements. That’s the only way to not get polarized.
1.1.1.1.1. Biases & Distorted Thinking
1.1.1.2. Safe spaces stifle vigorous intellectual debates. This doesn't mean you should make the people around you uncomfortable. Trying to impose your idea will scare the interest of the people around you.
1.1.1.3. Useful knowledge leads to success, contentment, confidence and wisdom. And there is no limit of knowledge. Chase after all the secrets of the world. Implement the useful ones into your life. And stay humble and curious along the way. Smart and knowledgeable people are often like that in many areas of life and not in one particular subject. They are often multi-disciplinary.
1.1.1.4. You won’t take things personally if you have a strong sense of yourself. When you know yourself, you don’t need to seek this information from others or get their acceptance. Nothing they say will affect you. You will be bulletproof. This is also helpful in realizing that all people view the world from a different perspective and that you too should recognize your own viewpoint.
1.1.1.5. Pain + Reflection = Progress When you are in pain and calm your mind and let the thoughts flow through out the emotions you will comprehend your problems, your weaknesses, your personal needs. And come out a better version of yourself. Your pain will fade away but the learnings will remain.
1.1.1.6. Of all those mediums of learning, you can benefit the most from books. Watching, listening or reading them. It’s incredible how they can be so high impact and high ROI. In a handful of hours you get to absorb what took someone else years to accumulate, understand, distill, and refine.
1.1.1.7. Reading and writing will make you more articulate in your conversation and allow your thoughts to form more communicable.
1.1.1.8. Take a step back and distinguish the symptoms from the disease. Diagnose the problem before the solving. Don't try to numb the pain, fix what's causing it.
1.1.1.9. You may have to hide the truth, but never lie or exaggerate. Lying to others will distort your own perception of events and observation skills over time. More importantly it will decay your credibility.
1.1.1.10. Never be 100% sure, but always be 100% confident. Doubt the person who doesn’t doubt.
1.1.1.11. Why is it that some people enjoy a happy and creative existence while others seem to find themselves settling into a comfortable but frustrating rut? Our increasingly anxious, distracted lives, can make us become too focused on external rewards and opinions (for example, by compulsively comparing ourselves with our peers). Focus instead on intrinsic rewards, which can lead us to engage in our interests so totally that we enter a state of pure flow. In such a state, we simply don’t care about external rewards like power or wealth and we don’t even consider the opinions of others.
1.1.2. GRACEFULNESS
1.1.2.1. If you want others to like and respect you, don’t criticize them (at least not publicly). Even if they’re wrong and they make mistakes. Never tell others they are wrong; they will only resent you. Whenever you tell someone they’re wrong, you’re basically saying, “I’m smarter than you.” Animals rewarded for good behavior learn more effectively than those punished for bad behavior. Criticizing people won’t encourage them to change their behavior because an average person is not primarily driven by reason but by emotion. Thus the person you criticize won’t truly listen to what you’re saying. They’ll just feel like they’re under attack, and their natural reaction will be defensive. While voicing criticism might help you blow off steam, in the long-term, it will just make others like you less. Criticizing someone is easy, but it takes character to be understanding and to forgive others for their mistakes and shortcomings. So if you want others to like you, think about why they did what they did, accept their shortcomings and make it a rule to never criticize them openly. If reason conflicts with a strong emotion, don’t try to argue. Enlist a conflicting and stronger emotion.
1.1.2.2. Asking someone you don't know for something (not too extreme, obviously) is the most useful and immediate invitation to social interaction. Like passing the salt. Such asking provides the stranger with an opportunity to prove themselves as a good person, at first encounter. One that has done you a kindness once will be more ready and comfortable to do you another, or ask something back in return.
1.1.2.3. We are not good enough for ourselves because we don’t fit with our own image of perfection. We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations. Don’t do it. Comparison is a thief of joy. People think of themselves relative to others, we constantly rebaseline expectations as we grow.
1.1.2.4. Someone who gossips to you will gossip about you too. If people see that you don’t gossip and respect others’ secrets you will earn trust and respect.
1.1.2.5. People won’t respect you just because you have power. Respect is given to high achieving people that are respectful, calm & confident and not asking for others’ attention.
1.1.2.6. Control your emotions. Control yourself. Don’t make a fool of yourself. Never let your possible enemies know what you are thinking. Ask yourself: “Am I reacting to this instinctively, or am I responding to the situation intelligently?”
1.1.2.7. Deep friendships will make us more content than anything else. Pay attention to who is happy when you are happy, and who is upset when you are upset.
1.1.2.8. The purpose of promises is that they remain immune to changing circumstances.
1.1.2.9. Success isn’t found in the eyes of others: buying things you don’t need, with money you don’t have, to impress people you won’t know in 10 years’ time is the fundamental cause of consumerism.
1.1.2.10. If you want to get someone lower their guards towards you, appreciate them. One of the strongest drivers of human behavior is the desire to be appreciated by others; we all like being complimented and hearing that we’re doing a good job. Our craving for approval and praise makes us climb the highest mountains, write novels and found multi-million-dollar companies. No one is immune to this longing for importance and appreciation. Just don’t shower people with phony flattery. They will see right through it.
1.1.2.11. Arguing with another person does not really make much sense. If you lose, you lose the argument. If you win, the other person will resent you for having hurt their pride, so you still will not have truly won them over. Nine times out of ten, the argument will only make the other person more entrenched in their stance than they were before. Barber lathers a man’s face before a shave to make the procedure more comfortable, so it is easier for us to hear unpleasant things after receiving praise. Keep this in mind whenever you wish for someone to make a change. When drawing attention to mistakes, do so indirectly and speak of your own errors first. When you feel like telling someone they’re wrong, start in a friendly way and ask a gentle question that will get them to say “yes.” *For example, instead of saying to your child: “Your grades are looking good,but your algebra is still lagging,” try saying “Your grades are looking good,and if you keep working on your algebra, it’ll soon catch up!" *
1.1.2.12. Teach, give gifts and contribute. Don’t donate. As an individual. As a company, donations are tax deductible.
1.1.2.13. Don't make jokes about people that may possibly offend them. You will be only entertaining yourself.
1.1.2.14. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Be interested in others. We all love a good listener, especially when they encourage us to speak about ourselves.
1.1.2.15. You will be judged by conventional measures and average people. Don’t hate them, they will give you meaningful values and a good times. Also, the same average person is a potential customer for your business. No need to disturb your peace with unnecessary hate.
1.1.3. VALOR
1.1.3.1. Avoid a passive life that just seems to “slip” by. Grow or die.
1.1.3.2. People and life are hell for the soft hearts. Stop being perceived weak. This does not mean to be rude. The first three things that we ask ourselves when we encounter a person: 1) Can I trust them? (Are they genuine?) 2) Can I respect them? (How successful are they? How emotional are they?) 3) Can I find a similar ground? (Are they interesting? Are they entertaining? In fact, we ask these questions until the end of a relation, but we are less likely to reconsider our opinion on people once they are negative.
1.1.3.2.1. #1 Unfortunately, apologizing frequently will give the impression of you being a loser to those around you. It makes them feel they are somehow superior. Subconsciously it is an action to beg for their acceptance. Don’t apologize if it is not highly necessary. Use your apologies sparingly.
1.1.3.2.2. #2 Explain things in a few words or sentences. If you dive deep on explaining too much it will create a feeling that you are desperate to be understood. Keep it short. If they ask more explain more. Drip feed the information.
1.1.3.2.3. #3 Don’t share your personal stuff easily. Even if you are confident. That gives a sign that you are trying and willing to open up easily to get their acceptance. And you can easily give a lot from yourself to them.
1.1.3.2.4. #4 Be comfortable in your own skin and doing things by yourself. This will be also attractive.
1.1.3.2.5. #5 Don’t complain. Have an open eye to see the problems objectively and be unbiased. Just don’t complain to others unless you are making fun of something. That’s a sign of approval seeking too. Complaining will also make you a boring, unpleasant, negative person. You should only complain if you really have to and to people you are very close with. (Except for corporate situations because customer feedback has the opposite effect.)
1.1.3.2.6. #6 Don’t need a partner to feel complete or happy.
1.1.3.2.7. #7 Don’t try to give an answer to people that are not in your level. Trying to explain yourself will only take you to rule #2 and #3.
1.1.3.2.8. #8 Say no when you want to say no, and yes when you want to say yes. If you know you are not being rude or arrogant then be confident speaking your mind. Also be confident in not knowing. Ask the things you don’t know.
1.1.3.2.9. #9 If you don't believe in yourself, no one will.
1.1.3.2.10. #10 Don't be too polite and nice more than it is needed. You would only do that to run away from a conflict or, again, get others to like you.
1.1.3.3. When you fear mistakes, you make decisions that are safe, but not necessarily right.
1.1.3.4. We can’t avoid the encounters, we can only approach them the best way. And we can only approach them better. There is no instance of a nation having benefited from prolonged warfare.
1.1.3.5. What the angel of death can teach us is how to be truly alive. The fact that we are running out of time makes things valuable. When you are desperate, you will find courage. When you are courageous, you can fight your great fears to reach your greatest potential. It doesn’t take very much light to wipe out the darkness and you can not rid the darkness if you are not willing to burn anything.
1.1.3.6. You need to find the right balance between being traditional and challenging the status quo. Becoming a linchpin means being brave enough to stand out of the crowd. But why is this so difficult? Why do most of us shy away from the limelight? The human brain evolved in stages. When we’re supposed to stand up and give a speech, for example, the primal brain goes berserk and fills us with fear. It screams: “No, don’t put yourself on stage where others can laugh at you, shout at you or attack you!” In many ways, we are brought up to fit in. Consider school: we’re taught to prepare for exams, keep our heads down and follow instructions like, “Use #2 pencils.” Coloring outside the lines gets you a D, and not doing as you’re told gets you detention. Is it any wonder that by the time we reach a working age, we are afraid of doing anything that might make us stand out from the crowd? This is why most people are content to just show up at work and do what they are told. They are afraid of being special and afraid of ruining the safe and secure status quo. Shipping is difficult because the primal brain in all of us does not want us to show our work to the world, as it might get criticized or laughed at. This phenomenon is called the resistance, and it creates procrastination and self-doubt. The more comfortable you get in pushing yourself into the uncomfortable the more calculated risks you will take. More risks you take the more you will experience life and build confidence. Be comfortable in making medium to low risk mistakes.
1.1.3.7. Whatever your society (eg family, idols, friends) values, you thrive in gaining prestige in that area. We tend to adopt habits that are praised and approved of by our culture because we have a strong desire to fit in and belong to the tribe. Smokers, vegans, elitists, metal-heads, entrepreneurs.. We all have a tribe. We tend to imitate the habits of three social groups: the close (family and friends), the many (the tribe), and the powerful (those with status and prestige). We become the 5 closest people around us. Pick your entourage very wisely or at least try to grow together. The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.
1.1.3.8. Make sure the things you are committing are important enough for you to accept a small chance of success against high risk.
1.1.3.9. Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Your physical posture will influence your mental posture.
1.1.3.10. All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make them believe we are near. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. Avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.; Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. -Sun Tzu / The Art of War
1.1.3.11. If you are feeling really angry or sad. Imagine if that day was the last day of your life. Would that event still be significant 30 years from now? Big minds don’t obsess over small problems. Things are more insignificant than you might think.
1.1.3.12. Your accomplishments will make you feel competent. Series of success is key to self-respect and self-love. This will give you a positive mindset and attract others around you. If you want to improve your performance, you need to seek out opponents that are better than you. By investing in loss, you can welcome the opportunity to learn. This is true no matter what your specialty or field, and it’s even true for children, too.
1.1.3.13. To succeed in our goals, we need to be prepared to take risks and unsettle those around us. You need to strive to put your own ideas center stage. By not caring about reputation, you gain the single-mindedness necessary for success. Imagine if everyone believed everything they heard, or if everyone accepted all authority or caved in to pressure from peers. That would result in a seriously boring and tepid environment because no one would innovate or think differently. Instead, we owe revolutions, mutations and innovations to those who flout social norms and don’t care what people think of them – those who were disagreeable. For example, a study of the Five Factor Model test of personality used by psychologists found that entrepreneurs had, among other personality traits, huge amounts of disagreeableness. It showed that many leaders reached their level of success by taking social gambles and having the boldness not to compromise their beliefs. Despite the fact that they could easily have been shunned by their peers and excluded from positions of power and influence, they took this risk to succeed. This is why it is said that leaders are often lonely. Go your own way. We are forever in thrall to the opinions of others. We seek validation and devise ways to get one up on friends as well as foes. Parents, teachers, career advisers and politicians appear to do the best for us, but if we follow them blindly it often leads to disappointment and disillusionment. Instead, by stepping back from peers and going it alone, we can identify where our real passions lie and reach contentment. We shouldn’t be afraid to hurt others’ feelings in order to do something novel. In fact, this is the only way to find like-minded people.
1.1.4. WORLDLINESS
1.1.4.1. SPORTS
1.1.4.1.1. True Noble
1.1.4.1.2. Contemporary Noble
1.1.4.1.3. Best Close Combat
1.1.4.2. WINE & SPIRITS
1.1.4.2.1. You will only truly deserve something luxury and premium when you know exactly what happens behind the scenes. When you know what you are buying in depth. What's the history of it? What is the supply chain like? What is the effort and knowledge required to produce it? How a 6-figure watch works? How an expensive cigar is made? The engine and technology of a premium car. The ingredients in a perfume you love. If you don't know what you own you are missing out on the true pleasure and the benefits of it. Get WSET Level 2 certified. It is the best wine and spirit education in the world. You are guaranteed to taste your regular wine differently next time. Here are some bests:
1.1.4.3. INTERNATIONALISM
1.1.4.3.1. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Experience living abroad in a country which does not speak your mother tongue, and make local friends there. It is an inexplicably valuable experience.
1.1.4.3.2. Try to learn a new language. It will improve the way you think and your sophistication. NOTE: French language and its society can unlock many free doors for you around the world. Secret clubs, VIP arrangements etc. All the way from Japan to Africa, Australia to Brazil there is a French connection. There is an unspoken elitist bond between its speakers.
1.1.4.3.3. Third Culture Kids & Saudade: If you are a global person you cannot be a local person. When you are too global, you will lose the sense of home and belonging. You will find it easier to meet new people but struggle to be fully part of a tribe.
1.1.4.3.4. Third Culture Kids & Saudade
1.1.4.4. FORMAL TABLE ETIQUETTE
1.1.4.4.1. These rules will look hilarious at informal tables. However, it is good to remember and practice them every now and then. Table behavior needs to look natural and coherent. In the right environment, these habits will get you noticed, included and you will be introduced to a wide range of secret opportunities.
1.1.4.4.2. Don’t drink until the host signals.
1.1.4.4.3. Men serves the alcohol. Women don't touch the bottle.
1.1.4.4.4. Don’t start eating until the elders do and everybody else is at the table.
1.1.4.4.5. Consider writing thank you cards after a formal dinner. Very effective and memorable.
1.1.4.4.6. If you make an okay sign with both of your hands left one will be a small b and right will be a small d. B side is for bread plate and D side is for drinks. Glasses are sorted from tall to short
1.1.4.4.7. Cutlery at 12 o'clock (not left or right) of your plate is reserved for desserts or cheese platter
1.1.4.4.8. When you are having soup, you drink it from the edge of the spoon not from the tip. And you drag the bottom of the spoon towards 12 o'clock to wipe it to the edge of your plate.
1.1.4.4.9. When you are finished, put the knife and fork parallel to each other. When you are leaving put the napkin on the left side of your plate, and on your chair if you are coming back. Elbows never on the table, you always sit straight shoulders back and hands always visible on the table.
1.1.4.4.10. You can put your elbows on the table if you are not holding cutlery and in the conversation mode.
1.1.4.4.11. You don’t compliment about how good the food is. That indicates the conversation is boring at the table. It is okay to ask how it is made, what is in it etc.
1.1.4.4.12. You fold your napkin on your lap when you are seated, and always wipe your mouth with the inside. This way the stains are hidden as you fold back after reuse.
1.1.4.4.13. Whatever you are drinking you never scull and lift your head to finish that last sip. Glass should be 90 degrees horizontal the most. That's why they refill the glasses before its empty.
1.1.4.4.14. Always close your mouth when chewing and don’t make noise
1.1.4.4.15. Never put your hand into your food, unless you are eating crustaceans.
1.1.4.4.16. Excuse yourself if you have to leave the table. But leave quietly if you will be back.
1.1.4.4.17. Don’t say “bless you” if someone sneezes. The proper way is ignoring the “inappropriate” situations at the table.
1.1.4.4.18. Don’t raise your voice unless you are telling something funny.
1.1.4.4.19. Don’t have a heated argument at the table.
1.1.4.4.20. Don’t speak with a full mouth
1.1.4.4.21. Don’t burp or fart at the table. Or ever. Obviously.
1.1.4.4.22. Don’t trade off your class to be accepted by others
1.1.4.4.23. Always hold the wine glass (and champagne) from the stem or the rod.
1.2. DIRECTION OF YOUR LIFE
1.2.1. SUMMARY
1.2.1.1. Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life If you don’t have your own DREAMS you won’t have a why to live for. You won’t have fuel for your desire. Be a dreamer. If you are not REALISTIC, your eyes will be closed. You will not see the mistakes. You will not be willing to learn new things. You will not learn how to get there. You won’t pick your dreams properly and you will live foolishly. If you are not DETERMINED you will be lazy and procrastinate execution. You need all 3 for a good life. To be successful.
1.2.1.2. 1-) Life has already begun. There is no interlude. Nor is there a trial version. Your every decision matters. 2-) If you fall in love, be ready to get your heart broken. It will happen. It is tough and it hurts. 3-) Broken relationships are not worth staying in. Do not waste your time on things you cannot fix anymore. Let them go, wipe those tears and move ahead. 4-) Your studying career does not end after prom. Knowledge is crucial. If you are not willing to be left behind, keep studying because this race is ferocious. 5-) We devise a perfect self-image and, when we fail to act in accordance with it, we punish, judge and blame ourselves. That’s wrong. Your weaknesses and failures do not matter that much. Learn to accept this. The only things that matter are your strengths. Improve them. All the superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are all walking flaws who’ve maximized only 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them. Only wins count. Therefore, do not be afraid to fail. 6-) Everything worth doing takes years. Do not expect to reach your goals too quickly. It will probably take much longer than you imagine. Persistence is everything. 7-) All the opportunities for growth are beyond your comfort zone. Make leaving it a habit. Find your discomfort zone. Enter it. If you can ignore discomfort you will be unstoppable. 8-) The world is full of injustice. There are plenty of unjust things you are likely to face within your lifetime. Be ready. Stop finding excuses. You either have the things you want or the reasons why you don’t. Take responsibility for your actions. Own yourself so you can solve and improve things. Asking right questions is the right approach. When something bad happens asking negative questions like “oh, why (not) me?” is not constructive. Instead try to enjoy solving the problem and ask yourself “what can I learn from it?”. Being curious makes inconveniences enjoyable. 9-) Luck comes to those who work hard. Persistence and hard work are the only prerequisites for luck. 10-) There is no perfect moment to start. If you want to start doing something, act now. Do not wait for a better moment. It will never come. Later often means never. Good things do not come to those who wait, maybe what is left from those that hustle. Your ideas and knowledge don’t matter, only what you do matters. Take action now. 11-) If you don't give reasonable deadlines to your personal goals, your incomplete responsibilities will pile up into a stressful burden. 12-) Experience and emotions are your best investments. The traditional measures of success -- fancy cars and houses -- are no longer relevant. Emotions, memories, experience, knowledge. These are the things that matter. Change the way you measure success in life. How many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you? How much do you know of the things you want to know? etc. 13-) Regular workouts are crucial. Take care of your health and body. Exercise regularly and make sure you are in a good shape. And being in good shape does not mean having a 6-pack. 14-) Some may occasionally guide you, but nobody will help you. You have to help yourself. 15-) Think bigger it’s free. If you don’t, you won’t get there. 16-) You can do anything, but you can't do everything. 17-) Be positive but calculate the worst scenario. Make the choices where the reward outweighs the risk. You will eventually hit the home run. 18-) It’s all just a game. Enjoy the ride.
1.2.2. 1) UNDERSTANDING THE CHANGE
1.2.2.1. Change is usually not a question of capability; it’s almost always a question of motivation. The only way we’re going to make a change now is if we create a sense of urgency that’s so intense that we’re compelled to follow through. Be bold enough to say “I’ve had it. I can’t spend another day, not another moment, living or feeling this way.” If we gather a set of strong enough reasons to change, we can change in a minute something we’ve failed to change for years. The greatest leverage you can create for yourself is the pain that comes from inside, not outside. Knowing that you have failed to live up to your own standards for your life is the ultimate pain. Most of us are too busy estimating the price of change. But what’s the price of not changing? If you don't change anything you can't expect a different outcome. By doing the same things you will only get back to the same results. We simply cannot become what we want to be by remaining who we are.
1.2.2.2. A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (fear) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth). Since the goal itself is progression, be comfortable taking reasonable amount of risks. To be alive at all involves some risk. Knowledge & experience will be your two antidotes to fear.
1.2.2.3. Satisfaction is the death of desire. Dissatisfaction can be a major key to success. So even if you are satisfied with your current conditions, you should strive for more because yesterday’s luxuries will become today’s necessities over time. Note: Dissatisfaction does not equal pessimism. No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself. If you never face adversity you will be unhappy. You need to have the sense of accomplishment from working hard and the sense of perspective from failure. You need to prove yourself. Or else you will be unhappy forever. What doesn’t kill you can make you stronger, and therefore happier. Faber est quisque fortunae suae, facere et pati fortia. Every man is architect of his own fortune so do brave deeds and endure.
1.2.2.4. Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. Being smart will never deliver results on its own because it doesn’t get you to act. It is desire, not intelligence, that prompts behavior.
1.2.2.5. To forge a destiny of abundance, you need to first learn how to change what causes scarcity in your life. The decisions that you’re making right now, every day, will shape how you feel today as well as who you’re going to become. It’s our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny. If you don’t make decisions about how you’re going to live, then you’ve already made a decision, haven’t you? You’re making a decision to be directed by the environment instead of shaping your own life. Only dead fish go with the flow like the the balloons in the wind. Too many of us don’t make the majority of our decisions consciously, in doing so, we pay a major price. Most people jump on the river of life without ever really deciding where they want to end up. So, in a short period of time, they get caught up in the current: current events, current fears, current challenges. When they come to forks in the river, they don’t consciously decide where they want to go, or which is the right direction for them. They become a part of the mass of people who are directed by the environment instead of by their own values. Most people never consciously set their system up. Instead, it’s been installed through the years by sources as diverse as parents, peers, teachers, television, advertisers, and the culture at large. They are stopping you from taking action, causing you to anticipate or worry about the future, making you feel loved or rejected, and dictating your level of success and happiness. Pain and pleasure. Everything we do, we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure. The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.
1.2.2.6. 1) Decide what you want and why 2) Take action 3) Notice what’s working or not 4) Change your approach until you achieve what you want. The way to make better decisions is to make more of them.
1.2.2.7. Though we’d like to deny it, the fact remains that what drives our behavior is instinctive reaction to pain and pleasure, not intellectual calculation. Intellectually, we may believe that eating chocolate is bad for us, but we’ll still reach for it. Why? Because we’re not driven so much by what we intellectually know, but rather by what we’ve learned to link pain and pleasure to in our nervous systems. It’s our neuro-associations — the associations we’ve established in our nervous systems — that determine what we’ll do. Then we will think about the proven benefits of chocolate to support our emotion logically. Although we’d like to believe it’s our intellect that really drives us, in most cases our emotions—the sensations that we link to our thoughts—are what truly drive us. The more emotionally composed you are, the more you will control your life. One of the most satisfying feeling is the feeling of making progress.
1.2.2.8. People are most tempted to distract themselves with pleasure when their lives was void of meaning. Drinking, overeating, anorexia, abusing drugs, attempting to control or dominate others, watching hour upon hour of television, and so on. What’s the real problem here? These behaviors are really the result of frustration, anger, and emptiness that people feel because they don’t have a sense of fulfillment in their lives. They’re trying to distract themselves from those empty feelings by filling the gap with the behavior that produces a “quick fix” change of state. It's only keeping the "monkey mind" busy. This behavior becomes a pattern, and people often focus on changing the behavior itself rather than dealing with the cause. They don’t just have a drinking problem; they have a values problem. The only reason they’re drinking is to try to change their emotional state because they don’t like the way they feel. The peace that we seek is not the peace of mind. It is peace from mind. All the activities you do to be happy like getting laid, taking a psychedelic, playing video games is because you are trying to get out of your own mind. You are trying to get your monkey mind to stop chattering at you for a moment. You are trying to get peace from mind and that's wrong. However, if you understand things, observe how life, nature and relations work, then you will slowly develop peace of mind.
1.2.2.9. Opposite of happiness is not sadness. It is boredom and boredom comes from inactivity. Therefore having an active life is key to happiness. As long as we identify happiness as our goal of life we will get further away from it because happiness is only a result. Just like you can’t be successful by aiming to be successful. You need to breakdown what you consider success and aim for those little objectives. When there is nothing that connects us to tomorrow there is no will to get up from bed, we are drawn into nihilism. Most of the unemployed people have this depression because they are hopeless and when you look at all the suicide notes there is always a mention of the meaninglessness of the life, there is nothing else left to live or experience, or that everything is meaningless. Right here, right now start creating little goals for yourself. They don’t have to be long term or complicated. But just have targets. Something that will pull you out of bed. You will be desperate if you don’t have a meaning because simply put, desperation is suffering minus the meaning. Life is all about suffering, it is finding a meaning in the suffering. Since you are going to suffer anyway you better put a meaning to it. Whatever you do in life will be a struggle, so you need to find the struggle that’s right for you. While the struggle can lead to great things, if you don’t have the right values, you’ll never be happy. On your deathbed, the songs you haven’t sang, the books you didn’t write, the dreams you haven’t realized will all come together. They will look at you and tell you “We could not exist because of you, and now we have to die with you.” Try different things. Embrace failure. Failure is meant to strip away what is inessential. When you stop pretending and acknowledge what you are, you can focus all your energy on what is really matters for you. Without failure you cannot see that.
1.2.2.9.1. Slowing influence of money over happiness
1.2.2.9.2. Combat Depression with Goals
1.2.2.10. In order to attempt to change you should find pain in your current situation and pleasure outside of it. Otherwise you will get used to pain and stay where you are. That’s why pleasure (or hope of pleasure) drives more than pain. We must get clear about what is most important in our lives and decide that we will live by these values, no matter what happens. Write things down, remind them to yourself every single day. This consistency must occur regardless of whether the environment rewards us for living by our standards or not. We must live by our principles even when it “rains on our parade,” even if no one gives us the support we need. The only way for us to have long-term happiness is to live by our highest ideals, to consistently act in accordance with what we believe our life is truly about. But we can’t do this if we don’t clearly know what our values are. This is the biggest tragedy in most people’s lives: many people know what they want to have, but have no idea of who they want to be. Getting “things” simply will not fulfill you. Only living and doing what you believe is “the right thing” will give you that sense of inner strength that we all deserve. Getting more things will only make you feel you are introducing your self-image better to others around you or to yourself, and that's pointless.
1.2.2.11. Think for a moment. 1) If you were going to be wrong in the end, would you rather be optimistic or pessimistic until you find out? 2) If you were going to be right in the end, would you rather be optimistic or pessimistic until you find out? Optimism is your preferred mood regardless of the outcome. You don't want pessimism if the result is not going to change anyway. Plan for the worst but always be optimistic. None of the accomplishments in human history were realized because of pessimism or nihilism. You need to be positive and hopeful in order to be constructive. That is the only way to move forward and grow.
1.2.2.12. In order to attempt to change you should find pain in your current situation and pleasure outside of it. Otherwise you will get used to pain and stay where you are. That’s why pleasure (or hope of pleasure) drives more than pain.
1.2.2.13. Which scenario do you think you would regret more: marrying a person who later becomes an axe murderer, or not marrying a person who later becomes a Nobel Prize-winning billionaire or a movie star? Surprisingly, the answer is the latter. This is because our brains are fundamentally wired to make even bad decisions look better in hindsight. When experiences are unpleasant, we quickly try to explain them in ways that make us feel better. So, while marrying that axe murderer may have been a mistake, we can always tell ourselves that we are stronger because of it, or that we’ve learned something valuable, like how to recognize signs of psychosis in other people. We regret inaction more because our minds have a harder time coming up with positive views of events we don’t have first-hand knowledge about. Our brains can’t extract the positives from our having done nothing. This means that when we pass on marrying the movie star, we simply regret it, without being able to say we learned something from the experience. We rarely, however, realize our mind works this way. There are millions of ordinary people stuck on how much money they could have made on cryptos instead of putting in the effort to understand how investing works. Studies show that people believe they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inaction, which may make us more hesitant to try something we’re unsure about. Yet, in reality, the most commonly voiced regrets are always of things people didn’t do, like not going to college, not starting their own business or not taking that trip to the Andes. So if you are hesitant about doing something, the best option is just to go for it. You can always learn from your mistakes, but you won’t learn anything from inaction. Always take action to seize the day; we can learn from mistakes but will always regret inaction.
1.2.2.14. Make your faith larger than your fears and your dreams larger than your doubts because inaction breeds doubt and fear. Moreover, action breeds confidence and courage.
1.2.2.15. It’s important to establish life rules that you can control. Using too much of your energy discovering yourself is pointless because you end up questioning life. And questioning life is endless. Set some personal goals and work hard for them. This is also very healthy to do for couples to do individually in a relationship so you won’t have time for drama. And if you happen to breakup somehow it can’t hurt you as much because you have bigger personal goals.
1.2.2.16. The Pygmalion effect, or Rosenthal effect, is a serotonin based psychological loop wherein appreciation leads to improvement in a given area. If parents reward their children for getting good grades, children will maintain their efforts or even try harder next time. Grandmothers love cooking because seeing a satiated family makes them feel special and useful. This effect boosts the motivation and confidence. Nevertheless, this is a double edged sword. For example, if girls get a lot compliments and attention about how they look, next time they will focus more on their looks. They will eventually become self-conscious. They will slowly start to invest more on their looks, expose their bodies and ignore the other aspects of life. Fun Fact: YouTube has banned dangerous stunt videos because they found that young men were competitively recording riskier challenges for more recognition. Consequently, some of them got injured or died. Setup your serotonin triggers by good habits. Don’t follow whatever the society appreciates. What you link to your pain and pleasure sensors to will shape your identity and destiny.
1.2.2.17. Picture this: You’re a senior manager at a large, illustrious company. You like your job and the compensation; you have a nice car, sharp clothes and the respect of your colleagues. Most of all, you love being a senior manager. Being a senior manager is who you are. Now, imagine that you have the chance to get right to the top. However, the opportunity isn’t without substantial risks. If you fail to pull it off perfectly, you’ll lose everything – the job, the car, the respect and, most importantly, your identity. Would you take the chance? The vast majority of people wouldn’t risk it. This is a result of what the author calls Manson’s Law of Avoidance – the tendency to flee anything that threatens our identity. Although avoiding major risks – such as that described above – may seem wise, our desperation to protect our identity is often more of a hindrance than a help. For example, many amateur artists and writers refuse to publicize or sell their work. They’re terrified that, should they show their art or writing, no one would like it. Trying and failing would destroy their identity, an identity that’s been built around the possibility of becoming a great artist. So they never try at all. Luckily, there is a way to temper the negatives of Manson’s Law of Avoidance: practicing a bit of Buddhism. Buddhism teaches that identity is an illusion. Whatever labels you give yourself – rich, poor, happy, sad, successful, a failure – are merely mental constructs. They simply aren’t real and so we shouldn’t let them dictate our lives. You must, therefore, learn to let go of your identity. Liberating yourself from an identity can be a wonderful experience. For example, you may have always considered yourself to be a career-minded person, and this has meant that you’ve always put your job first, and your family and hobbies second. Free yourself of this constraining self-image, and you’ll be able to do whatever makes you happy, whether that be spending time with your kids or making model airplanes. You can be anything you want at any age.
1.2.3. 2) PLANNING THE CHANGE
1.2.3.1. Your future isn't handed to you, you build it. So free your mind and dream. Envision great things. This will be the source of your strength. The angel on your shoulder in your darkest hour. Fall in love with your goals. Then you will be immune to negativity and other difficulties along the way. When we give up on our dreams, we die while we are still alive Now is the time to design the next ten years of your life—not once they’re over.
1.2.3.1.1. Breakdown your thoughts. Divide them to narrow bite size objectives and make them S.M.A.R.T. Use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) or Epics and Stories (ESs). OKRs (ESs) surface your primary goals. They channel efforts and coordination. They link diverse operations, lending purpose and unity. An OBJECTIVE, is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. By definition, objectives are significant, concrete, action oriented, and (ideally) inspirational. When properly designed and deployed, they’re a vaccine against fuzzy thinking—and fuzzy execution. KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable. Objective can be long-lived, rolled over for a year or longer, key results evolve as the work progresses. Once they are all completed, the objective is necessarily achieved. (And if it isn’t, the OKR was poorly designed in the first place.) It’s not a key result unless it has a number. You either meet a key result’s requirements or you don’t; there is no gray area, no room for doubt. When it comes to setting your objectives (epics), you should only have between three and five per quarter. That way, you’ll be forced to figure out which priorities matter most to you before you begin working on them, and this will ensure that they’ll contribute to your future success.
1.2.3.1.2. Prioritize (MoSCoW) And take action on what matters the most first.
1.2.3.2. Multitasking makes you less productive but makes you feel more productive. So eliminate all sources of distraction and secluding yourself like a monk. Set a clearly defined, long period of seclusion for work and leave the rest of your time free for everything else. Form a habit of doing deep work for blocks and track your accomplishments. You can't manage what you don't measure.
1.2.4. 3) STARTING TO CHANGE
1.2.4.1. Those who never start will always fail. Those who never quit will always succeed. That's why the first step is often the hardest step.
1.2.4.2. Your story may not be a happy story but that doesn’t make you who you are. The rest of the story does. Imagine a movie where nothing but terrible things happen. But, in the end, everything works out. Everything is resolved. A sufficiently happy ending can change the meaning of all the previous events. They can all be viewed as worthwhile, given that ending. Now imagine another movie. A lot of things are happening. They’re all exciting and interesting. But there are a lot of them. Ninety minutes in, you start to worry. “This is a great movie,” you think, “but there are a lot of things going on. I sure hope the filmmaker can pull it all together.” But that doesn’t happen. Instead, the story ends, abruptly, unresolved, or something facile and clichéd occurs. You leave deeply annoyed and unsatisfied—failing to notice that you were fully engaged and enjoying the movie almost the whole time you were in the theater. The present can change the past, and the future can change the present. A man is defined by his actions not his memories.
1.2.4.3. Qui non proficit, deficit. If you are not getting better everyday, you are getting worse. If you improve yourself 1% every day, within a year you will be 37 times better than today. If you are getting 1% worse everyday, within a year you will be 34.3 times worse than today. Keep in mind, aging doesn’t work against you, lack of activity does. There are authors, presidents and body builders at the age of 80. Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year—and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade. Imagine a plane taking off from Los Angeles en route to New York. If, during takeoff, the pilot decided to adjust course 3.5 degrees to the south, the plane’s nose would move just a few feet. Outside of the cockpit, no one on board would notice the small movement. But over the course of a journey across the country, the impact of the change would be considerable, and the confused passengers would alight from their plane in Washington, DC, not New York. We don’t notice tiny changes, because their immediate impact is negligible. If you are out of shape today, and go for a 20-minute jog, you’ll still be out of shape tomorrow. Conversely, if you eat a family-size pizza for dinner, it won’t make you overweight overnight. But if we repeat small behaviors day after day, our choices compound into major results. Eat pizza every day, and it’s likely you will have gained considerable weight after a year. Go jogging for 20 minutes every day, and you’ll eventually be leaner and fitter, even though you won’t have noticed the change happening. If you want to make a positive change in your life, you should recognize that change requires patience, as well as confidence that your habits are keeping you on the right trajectory – even if you aren’t seeing immediate results. The key to making big changes in your life doesn’t have to involve major upheaval; you don’t need to revolutionize your behavior or reinvent yourself. Rather, you can make tiny changes to your behavior, which, when repeated time and time again, will become habits that may lead to big results.
1.2.4.3.1. Progress
1.2.4.3.2. With enough practice, your brain will pick up on the cues that predict certain outcomes without consciously thinking about it. Once our habits become automatic, we stop paying attention to what we are doing. The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. You need to be aware of your habits before you can change them. Small changes in context can lead to large changes in behavior over time . The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors. To change anything about your life, you first have to stop the time. Think calmly. Take a clear decision. Then, no matter what challenges you may face, you have to stick to that decision. This necessitates that you must be willing to adapt your approach as you meet obstacles. When you tune a new piano for the first time, it sounds beautiful for a few days. Because the strings are new it requires tuning again. Once a week, once a month, once a year until it matures. These strings are strong; to keep them at the perfect level of tension, we’ve got to condition them to stay at this level. You’ve got to come back and re-tighten them on a regular basis until the wire is trained to stay at this level. Once we effect a change, we should reinforce it immediately. Then, we have to condition our nervous systems to succeed not just once, but consistently. When we do something for the first time, we create a physical connection, a thin neural strand that allows us to re-access that emotion or behavior again in the future. Think of it this way: each time we repeat the behavior, the connection strengthens. We add another strand to our neural connection. With enough repetitions and emotional intensity, we can add many strands simultaneously, increasing the tensile strength of this emotional or behavioral pattern until eventually we have a strong network of this behavior or feeling. This is when we find ourselves compelled to feel these feelings or behave in this way consistently. Making new habits is not easy but so is destroying them. New habits and decisions are like that. You may fail to stick to your commitment a few times, but if you keep on working on it, over the course of time, it will happen less and less until it never happens again. Our bodies are excellent at adapting to new conditions. Although this skill shouldn’t be taken advantage of. For example, if a person starts smoking again and again after quitting, the body will adapt to this pattern and it will get harder to permanently quit.
1.2.4.4. Every technical problem has a technical solution. You can accept it, you can deny it or you can fight it.
1.2.4.5. Just keep in mind that all the knowledge in the world is worthless and a waste of time unless you use them. Fool with a tool is still a fool. If you let your learning lead to knowledge, you become a fool. If you let your learning lead to action, you become unstoppable.
1.2.4.6. Whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail. Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows. You can change drastically at any stage of your life.
1.2.4.7. Success truly is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is often the result of bad judgment. Failure is the greatest teacher. Failure is key to success. If you are not failing, you are not trying. You have to fail your way to success.
1.2.4.8. Remove boredom from your vocabulary. Forget about that word. It’s not in your vocabulary, and you won’t experience the feeling. We don’t experience certain emotions because we don’t have a word to represent them. Think about what words you should unlearn.
1.2.4.9. No puedes cambiar el viento, pero puedes ajustar las velas para alcanzar tu destino. Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.
1.2.4.10. There is only one tough challenge that will keep coming back throughout this journey. This is the single biggest difficulty you are ever going to have. Everything else will be easy and you will be conquering anything you want as long as you can dominate this one thing. You may even turn the cards in your favor and make this your greatest ally. It is your mind. No one has ever limited you more you than you have limited yourself. Stripped of your excuses, there is no-one to blame but yourself for everything. You will fail, but you will have to get up. You only truly get defeated when you give up. And that’s different to failing. Prioritize progress over perfection. Success will come in time over progress not in one go. Passion, intellect, focus and lots of energy is a winning combination on this journey. It is all in your mind. Your mind is your only ally or your only foe.
1.2.4.11. You won't worry about maintaining the quality of your life (your health, relationships, money) if you work on improving everyday.
1.2.4.12. How quickly could a person recover from the loss of a loved one and begin to feel differently? Physically, they have the capability to do it the next morning. But they don’t. Why? Because we have a set of beliefs in our culture that we need to grieve for a certain period of time. How long do we have to grieve? It all depends upon your own conditioning. Think about this. If the next day after you lost a loved one, you didn’t grieve, wouldn’t that cause a great deal of pain in your life? First, people would immediately believe you didn’t care about the loved one you lost. And, based on cultural conditioning, you might begin to believe that you didn’t care, either. The concept of overcoming death this easily is just too painful and wrong. But there are, in fact, cultures where people celebrate with plenty of happiness when someone dies. Usually it’s the getting ready to change that takes people time. The first belief we must have if we’re going to create change quickly is that we can change now.
1.2.4.13. Patience is not a virtue. It is a tool. Sometimes impatience must be preferred for shortcuts and progression. Sometimes we need to get ourselves into an angry state in order to create enough leverage to make a change.
1.2.4.14. We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regretful emptiness. For whatever goal you want to achieve, there is discomfort along that path. Self-discipline is the amount of discomfort we can handle and tolerate. It drives you through unpleasant decisions and allows you to attain. It’s an essential component of mastery, and nothing great was ever accomplished without it. Having self-discipline and willpower is the ability to do difficult things because those things are better for your well-being in the long run. In learning to be disciplined, you become comfortable with the discomfort of seeing an urge and not indulging it.
1.2.4.15. Convictional belief is: Unless I believe this, I will suffer massive pain. If I were to change this belief, then I would be giving up my entire identity, everything my life has stood for, for years.
1.2.4.16. Everybody lives up to their choices. You harvest what you sow
1.2.4.17. If the dolphin is always rewarded, he may become habituated and will no longer give 100 percent. So, in the future, the dolphin is rewarded sometimes after the first jump or perhaps after the fifth, or after the second. A dolphin is never sure which jump will be rewarded. This sense of anticipation that a reward may be given, coupled with the uncertainty as to which try will be rewarded, causes the dolphin to consistently give its full effort. The reward is never taken for granted. This is the identical force that drives people to gamble. Once they’ve gambled and been rewarded—and linked intense pleasure to the reward—that excitement and anticipation pushes them to go forward. When they haven’t been rewarded in a while, often they have an even stronger sense that this time they’ll be rewarded. What drives the gambler is the possibility of winning again. If a person were to gamble without ever receiving a reward, they would give up. This is why people who discontinue a bad habit (like smoking or gambling) for a period of months, and then decide to have “just one more hit,” are actually reinforcing the very pattern that they’re trying to break and making it much more difficult to be free of the habit for a lifetime. If you smoke one more cigarette, you’re stimulating your nervous system to expect that in the future you’ll reward yourself this way again. You’re keeping that neuro-association highly active and, in fact, strengthening the very habit you’re trying to break!
1.2.4.18. The hard part is not the learning. It is the unlearning. It’s not the climbing of the mountain. It’s going back down and starting over again. It is the beginner’s mind. It order to be successful you must be willing to start from scratch, to hit reset, and start from zero. What you already know and what you’re already doing is an impediment to your full potential.
1.2.4.19. Studies have shown that our craving for rewards actually causes a stronger emotional reaction than receiving the reward itself. Thus anticipation plays a crucial role. If the expected reward is predictable, we won’t get as excited about it as quickly, compared to if the reward is unpredictable. This is because variability has been proven to affect our brain chemistry in a way that increases our drive for rewards.
1.2.4.20. You’ll never find the perfect partner. You’ll never find the perfect political view. You’ll never be a perfect parent. You’ll never have a perfect plan to start a company. Good enough is reasonable amount to move forward. You can’t always be sure but you can always be confident. Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear and simple as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge becomes paralyzing. This is called Analysis Paralysis. You should be happy about making mistakes that don’t kill you. Risk aversion and demand for perfection stems from fear. It is closely tied to the anxiety of making errors and it is a perfect setup for failure. This is not a good one for innovation or progress. You should be happy about making mistakes and dreaming wildly.
1.2.4.21. If something is important enough you should try. Even if the probable outcome is failure.
1.2.4.22. Life is running out. Don’t procrastinate. The universe only rewards calculated risk, hard work and passion. Don’t waste your time doing something that serves no purpose. Killing time is not murder it’s suicide.
1.2.4.23. Go back to your room, close the door and hack something cool you can show the world that you are a doer and not another dreamer that cannot execute. Delusion is only delusion when you don’t accomplish your goal.
1.2.4.24. If you want to focus only on the things that really matter to you, it is vitally important to say “no!” to everything else. FOMO – the fear of missing out – keeps us stressed, but the truth is, we’ll miss out on things no matter what. You can’t have the perfect career, lots of family time and countless hours to spend surfing waves on a sunny beach. It’s more important to miss out on the right things. So pick what’s important to you, and ignore the rest. Be totally ruthless with this.
1.2.5. 4) STICKING TO CHANGE
1.2.5.1. An entire ocean cannot sink a ship unless the water is in the ship. Same with negativity. If you are wise & confident, none of drama around you can affect your mood just like a bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of a branch breaking. You will only receive a negative idea if your mind is fertile ground for that.
1.2.5.2. Obsession is necessary for success. Climb high; Climb far. Your goal the sky; Your aim the star.
1.2.5.3. Habits emerge because our brain is eager to save time and energy, so in most situations it will make us do whatever worked last time. The more you repeat them the stronger your habits will bond. How can you possibly succeed in adopting a new habit? The easiest way is to repeat it frequently. One study showed that students who wanted to get into the habit of flossing their teeth regularly were more successful the more frequently they engaged in flossing. If it can’t be repeated often, the new habit has to be very useful to still be adopted successfully.
1.2.5.4. It’s not just getting a goal that matters, but the quality of life you experience along the way
1.2.5.5. True long-term thinking is not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Kaizen mindset. Looking at the small daily habits. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.
1.2.5.6. Pain is an old friend. Embrace pain. Push your comfort zone. E.g. Start your day with cold showers. This way you will be comfortable handling unwanted situations. And you need to take a reasonable amount of risk to succeed in life too. That's the difference between discipline and motivation. You won't be always motivated but you can always be disciplined.
1.2.5.7. Live your life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen. Each day work through these lists, and it is that sequence of calls that propels forward.
1.2.5.8. Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your lack of knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. You get what you repeat. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems and processes.
1.2.5.9. When you are feeling upset treat yourself as if you would to your child. What would you tell him/her? How would you like him/her to react? Do the same to yourself.
1.2.5.10. Success, which is a product of daily habits, is closing the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
1.2.5.11. What we do at the moment we want to quit defines who we are. Everybody comes to a point in their life when they want to quit, but it is what you do at that moment that determines who you are. Those who ask again and again shall finally receive.
1.2.5.12. Even monkeys fall out of trees
1.2.5.13. Just because someone stumbles, loses their way it doesn’t mean they are lost forever. So if you are going through hell, keep going.
1.2.5.14. Yerkes-Dodson Law says, there is a perfect motivation efficiency based on how challenging the task is. Too simple is boredom, too difficult is hesitation. The right amount is called Goldilocks amount. Based on Yerkes-Dodson Law, we get used to the difficulty over time and therefore we need higher difficulty to stay motivated. It also says that laziness will shift the Goldilocks motivation level to zero stress tasks.
1.2.5.15. We typically give up and go home when we have expended only 40 percent of our potential effort. Why? Well, there’s a part of our mind that wants to protect us from suffering and hardship, so it tricks us into believing we’ve already given everything we’ve got when really we still have 60 percent left in the tank. To master our minds, we have to push through the suffering and ignore the voice in our head so we can give our true best every time.
1.2.5.16. It is the small things, done consistently, that are the big things.
1.2.5.17. Schedule your reinforcement so your change lasts. Otherwise you will forget how to solve a Rubiks cube or a language. The most important thing to remember about conditioning, however, is to reinforce the desired behavior immediately.
1.2.5.18. For changes to be of any true value, they’ve got to be lasting and consistent. Sometimes you don’t need anything new, but reminded of what you already know, and take action.
1.2.5.19. When you fall in love with the process and not the end product, you don't have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.
1.2.5.20. Delay the instant gratification. Our short-term solutions often become long-term problems. By trying to avoid pain in the short term, we often end up making decisions that create pain in the long term, and when we arrive further down the river we tell ourselves that the problems are permanent and unchangeable, Life is cumulative. Whatever results we’re experiencing in our lives are the accumulation of a host of small decisions we’ve made as individuals, as a family, as a community, as a society, and as a species.
1.2.5.21. Bruce Lee himself said “I do not fear a man who has practiced 10,000 kicks. I fear a man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
1.2.5.22. You can feel sore tomorrow or you can feel sorry tomorrow. Hard choices bring easy life. Easy choices bring hard life.
1.2.5.23. Don't ever trust your future self because if you don't do it today you wont do it tomorrow.
1.2.5.24. Best way to break the procrastination is the 3 second rule. Count to 3 and do it without allowing your brain to find an excuse.
1.2.5.25. Knocking off the hardest things first has been scientifically proven to help us accomplish more. Your mind’s RAM is also empty in the mornings. So you are the sharpest around 11 AM unless you multitask.
1.2.5.26. Many people choose to make pleasure their priority in life. And yet chasing pleasure above everything else isn’t healthy; in fact, it’s the central value of cigarette addicts, adulterers and gluttons. Research has shown that those who regard pleasure as the greatest good are likely to be anxious and depressed. After a hard day’s work, many of us sit watching TV, films or videos. This state of pure consumption is when we are at our most passive and easily distracted. Furthermore, on the weekends, many of us unwind with the artificial paradise of alcohol or even drugs. While these may promise relaxation or an expanded consciousness, the result is often that we damage our ability to concentrate and we lose control. The formulaic storylines of TV programs and video games require external stimulation, while neither allows us to exert skill or to focus fully on our goals. Our minds often don’t do what they can to achieve growth or complexity, but we shouldn’t take the path of least resistance and most distraction. Work that you treat like a game, with intrinsic rewards and varied skills, ceases to be “work.” Many people are dissatisfied with their daily routines and often their jobs are to blame. What makes matters worse is that their leisure time is spent recovering from their work in the laziest way. However, work can be developed into something that provides a challenge, focuses our attention and reduces our anxieties. To get into a state of flow you should seek out new challenges in work, aiming to learn as much as possible about all of the essential tasks involved in keeping your company running, rather than just clocking in and clocking out. Take rock climbers, for example. Obviously they face extreme danger in their goals, but what they enjoy is using their expertise to quell their fears – for instance, by accurately estimating the difficulty of a climb. To do this, they have to devote their full attention to the task. This immersion that we can see in the rock climber is so powerful it can release us from our self-consciousness, worries and anxieties and allow us to lose track of time. Indeed, the rock climber focuses so deeply on the intricacies of the rock face that he forgets his problems. For instance, crosswords kill time on trains, but this pursuit is dependent on an external stimulus. Instead, try creating your own crossword puzzles. Not only can this lead to flow, but it also improves your wordplay skills, making conversations more fun by transcending the usual small talk and mundane exchanges.
1.2.5.27. Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. If you quit now you will soon be back to where you started. And when you started you were desperately wishing to be where you are now. The struggle you are in today is developing the strength you need for tomorrow so you need to hit your target today. If you hit the target for today, you will hit the target everyday. Discipline is permanent motivation is temporary.
1.2.5.28. Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become reality.
1.3. MAINTENANCE OF YOUR LIFE
1.3.1. HEALTH
1.3.1.1. HABITS
1.3.1.1.1. A physically and mentally lazy life combined with low caloric intake will slow down fat burn and your metabolism. It will make you 'skinny fat'. You will lose muscles during starvation. It will make you sleepy. You will also injure yourself more often. Instead, if you want to get lean, eat a lot of high quality food with correct portioning + increase your metabolism + maintain/gain muscles.
1.3.1.1.2. Use sunscreen.
1.3.1.1.3. The surface of your teeth is spongy. Food with color (e.g. coffee, wine, tea, cigarettes) will discolor your teeth gradually and irreversibly. If you consume the above, rinse your mouth afterwards or drink water. Brush and floss your teeth twice a day. No more, no less.
1.3.1.1.4. A healthy look shouldn’t be your goal. It should be the result of being healthy. A good rule of thumb is if your body fat % is out of the range of 7% and 20% you are almost certainly unhealthy.
1.3.1.2. NUTRITION
1.3.1.2.1. General Nutrition
1.3.1.2.2. Fats & Cholesterol
1.3.1.2.3. Carbs & Sugar
1.3.1.2.4. Protein
1.3.1.3. EXERCISE
1.3.1.3.1. Exercise daily and moderately your entire life.
1.3.1.3.2. After the age of 35, make a habit of warm ups and stretching before you exercise.
1.3.1.3.3. Lift with quality not quantity. Weight will come later. Prioritize stability and control. Train smart. Fortify your minor joint muscles. Keep it athletic, don’t workout one dimensional.
1.3.1.3.4. Don’t forget to train your back muscles. Fix your posture. If you are working with weights you must first strengthen your skeletal muscles. E.g. face pulls. Find exercises to strengthen your glutes and external rotator cuff muscles. Only then, allow yourself work on your beach / disco muscles. Otherwise some muscles and joints we injure in our 20s can last for a lifetime.
1.3.1.3.5. When you damage your muscles a little bit (to a level your body can handle) your body over-repairs them under inflammation. This is how we grow muscles. When you damage your muscle too much at once, your body cannot repair it and covers it with a scar tissue which you may have to carry for the rest of your life or require surgery.
1.3.1.3.6. The biggest difference between health and fitness comes down to understanding the distinction between aerobic and anaerobic exercise, between endurance and power. Aerobic means, literally, “with oxygen,” and refers to moderate exercise sustained over a period of time. This is also known as Low-Intensity Steady State Cardio (LISS). Your aerobic system is your system for endurance and cardiovascular stamina which encompasses the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and aerobic muscles. If you activate your aerobic system with no glycogen in your blood, after 15 minutes, you start to burn fat as your primary fuel. It is recommended to do LISS early in the morning for maximum fat burn because you have no glycogen in your blood on an empty stomach. On the other hand, anaerobic means, literally, “without oxygen,” and refers to exercises that produce short bursts of power to generate force. Anaerobic exercise burns glycogen as its primary fuel. Unlike LISS, if you put your muscles under stress without glycogen in your blood, you will injure yourself. Make sure you feel energetic before this type of workout. If you want to build strength, speed and explosive power you need to do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). For muscle volume you need weight training (WT). You need to do balance and rotate all 3 types for different reasons.
1.3.1.3.7. Getting big and bulky is difficult, so don’t be afraid of exercising with weights. Do muscle training 3-5 times a week. If you are getting big quickly it probably means you are on caloric surplus and increasing your body fat %.
1.3.1.4. MIND
1.3.1.4.1. If you want the deepest level of life fulfillment, you can achieve it in only one way, and that is by deciding upon what you value most in life, what your highest values are, and then committing to live by them every single day. And surrounding yourself with similar people.
1.3.1.4.2. Never use antidepressants, painkillers etc.. If you are unhappy or have problems in your life, focus on understanding them and fixing them. Do not try to shut the symptoms. Do not run always run away from obstacles. Antidepressants and painkillers are chemical compounds that change the biochemistry of your brain and nerves. They numb the cognitive abilities. Often permanently. Similar to recreational drugs. They disrupt your serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphin regulation and cause addiction.
1.3.1.4.3. Depressed and anxious people start to construct beliefs like “I am bad, the world is bad, the future is bad” and these beliefs mutually reinforce each other. This becomes the filter they see the world through. Breaking the bonds between these beliefs releases the person from depression.
1.3.1.4.4. You’re more creative and intuitive when you’re in a better mood. When you’re in a better mood, the part of the mind that is alert and analytical tends to relax. That cedes control of your mind to the more intuitive and quicker thinking system, which also makes you more creative.
1.3.1.4.5. As you get curious about your own emotions, you’ll get calm, and learn important distinctions about them.
1.3.1.4.6. Research has shown that the feeling of powerlessness associated with a poor financial situation is actually not dissimilar to physical torture.
1.3.1.4.7. Your cognitive systems are like muscles. If you don't learn, memorize or calculate you will mental abilities will decline in time.
1.3.1.4.8. Cold showers are not only excellent for your immune system, metabolism and skin quality but also great for boosting your power of will and fighting depression. You will get used to discomforts of life in general and embrace your fears.
1.3.1.4.9. All of our decisions and and our behavior is solely determined by two factors FEAR and REWARD. We run away from what we dislike and strike at what we love. These fear and reward factors are filtered by two different systems – one of them is AUTOMATIC (System 1) and the other is CONSIDERED (System 2). They are the impulsive, automatic, intuitive System 1; and the thoughtful, deliberate, calculating System 2. As they play off against each other, their interactions determine how we think, make judgments and decisions, and act. System 1 is the part of our brain that operates intuitively and suddenly, often without our conscious control. You can experience this system at work when you hear a very loud and unexpected sound. What do you do? You probably immediately and automatically shift your attention toward the sound. That’s System 1. This system is a legacy of our evolutionary past. There are inherent survival advantages in being able to make such rapid actions and judgments. This thinking works with less energy. That’s why we like the automatic lazy thinking not the cognitive thinking. That’s why we like to stay fool instead of being curious. It takes a lot of calories to learn something new permanently because you are building new strands of neurons. System 2 is what we think of when we visualize the part of the brain responsible for our individual decision-making, reasoning and beliefs. It deals with conscious activities of the mind such as self-control, choices and more deliberate focus of attention. We learn by System 2 thinking and if we repeat something many times it falls into System 1 thinking. As we age, because we have repeated things so many times, our only thinking way becomes System 1. It gets harder to switch to System 2 and that causes memory loss and critical thinking. We are designed to be efficient so at some point, if we don't resist, System 1 leads the entire cognitive system. It is a trade-off and both are necessary. A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The price that most likely came to your mind, $0.10, is a result of the intuitive and automatic System 1, and it’s wrong. The correct answer is $0.05. The lazy mind can lead to errors and affect our intelligence. The lazy mind can lead to errors and affect our intelligence. The issue the bat-and-ball problem exposes is our innate mental laziness. When we use our brain, we tend to use the minimum amount of energy possible for each task. This is known as the law of least effort. Because checking the answer with System 2 would use more energy, our mind won’t do it when it thinks it can just get by with System 1. This laziness is unfortunate, because using System 2 is an important aspect of our intelligence. Research shows that practicing System-2 tasks, like focus and self-control, lead to higher intelligence scores. The bat-and-ball problem illustrates this, as our minds could have checked the answer by using System 2 and thereby avoided making this common error. By being lazy and avoiding using System 2, our mind is limiting the strength of our intelligence. Often we find ourselves in situations where we need to make a quick judgment. To help us do this, our minds have developed little shortcuts to help us immediately understand our surroundings. These are called heuristics. Most of the time, these processes are very helpful, but the trouble is that our minds tend to overuse them. Our minds use different amounts of energy depending on the task. When there’s no need to mobilize attention and little energy is needed, we are in a state of cognitive ease. Yet, when our minds must mobilize attention, they use more energy and enter a state of cognitive strain. These changes in the brain’s energy levels have dramatic effects on how we behave. In a state of cognitive ease, the intuitive System 1 is in charge of our minds, and the logical and more energy-demanding System 2 is weakened. This means we are more intuitive, creative and happier, yet we’re also more likely to make mistakes. In a state of cognitive strain, our awareness is more heightened, and so System 2 is put in charge. System 2 is more ready to double-check our judgments than System 1, so although we are far less creative, we will make fewer mistakes. You can consciously influence the amount of energy the mind uses to get in the right frame of mind for certain tasks. If you want a message to be persuasive, for example, try promoting cognitive ease. One way to do this is to expose ourselves to repetitive information. If information is repeated to us, or made more memorable, it becomes more persuasive. This is because our minds have evolved to react positively when repeatedly exposed to the same clear messages. When we see something familiar, we enter a state of cognitive ease. Cognitive strain, on the other hand, helps us succeed at things like statistical problems. We can get into this state by exposing ourselves to information that is presented to us in a confusing way, for example, via hard-to-read type. Our minds perk up and increase their energy levels in an effort to comprehend the problem, and therefore we are less likely to simply give up.
1.3.1.4.10. Unplug yourself from social media as much as possible unless you are using it for business purposes. These applications are built in a way that can first understand your interests, and then push content accordingly to keep your attention. Once they have your attention they can gradually rewire your thoughts over the course of time. Affect your political view or make you want things like apparel or nutrition and electronics and make you consume and get your money. We are what we absorb. So make sure you put high quality stuff into your brain as much as into your body. If you are in disarray you probably won’t be able to achieve your goals. If you don’t consciously plant the seeds you want in the garden of your mind, you’ll end up with weeds.
1.3.1.4.11. Sleep at least 7 hours (maximum 8 hours). This is when you heal, register memory, grow and build muscles. Looking at screen (particularly high blue brightness) in bed will delay falling asleep and decrease the quality of it. Looking at screen right after waking up will delay mental waking up. Also you will be less likely remember the things you do while you are partially awake.
1.3.1.4.12. Heavy metals affect cognitive ability in older age. Make sure you are moderately using cast iron pans and copper pipes. Enamel coated cast iron is the way to go.
1.3.2. PARENTING
1.3.2.1. DOs
1.3.2.1.1. Children that dine with their family 5-7 times a week are significantly less likely to use drugs.
1.3.2.1.2. Many parents and teachers believe that competition is unhealthy for children. But the opposite is true: just the right amount of competition can equip children to cope with obstacles later in life. So how much competition is the right amount? One way to approach it is by using short-term goals to nurture a long-term goal. If a child loses a sporting match or a competition in a hobby they care about, parents should first make sure to assure their child that it’s okay if they feel sad or disappointed. Parents should also show the child how proud they are of her, and help her identify ways to improve. From this, the child can develop the short-term goal of learning new skills and developing new strengths before the next competition.
1.3.2.1.3. The more you unite and support each other, and the more you celebrate success, the more champions will born. Teach them how to learn from mistakes. Negativity does not create success and innovation. Positivity & celebration does. Be dominant. Not necessarily aggressive. Your advice should be guidelines, not rules. If you make enemies, they will stand against whatever you want to achieve in every opportunity.
1.3.2.1.4. Parents who take part in challenging, skillful tasks like carpentry or cooking rather than TV-watching or drinking are more likely to see their children try to emulate these positive traits.
1.3.2.1.5. Children in father-absent homes are four times as likely to be poor. Fatherless children are at much greater risk for sex, drug and alcohol abuse. Children living with married biological parents are less anxious, depressed and delinquent than children living with one or more non-biological parent. Children in single-parent families are also twice as likely to commit suicide. Even if the parents are divorced kids should continue spending quality time with both parents, together if possible.
1.3.2.1.6. Give your children big cash only after they reach 25, not before. You don’t fully learn about life until then. That’s also when you manage to get successful. As an allowance, they should not get more money than the minimum salary of your country of residence. But support their overseas holidays once a year if possible. Try to get them start traveling at an early age and frequently. But make sure they have a sense of ‘home’.
1.3.2.1.7. Let them experience team spirit and locker room talks. Push them to live the life. Improve their social skills. Drive fear out of their minds. They should be able to hold their grounds when challenged a threat. Being smart, knowledgable and wise is environmental. Children and even adults need to read, learn, suffer, experience, and enjoy. This is how you get better.
1.3.2.1.8. Our kids have trouble paying attention in school long enough to think, memorize, and learn partly because they’ve become addicted to instantaneous gratification.
1.3.2.1.9. If you drop the frog into hot water it will jump out. If you increase temperature of the water slowly frog will boil and die. Teach things gradually.
1.3.2.1.10. People unconsciously develop rigid attitudes and behavioral patterns in their relationship to money that they learned from their parents – and that will determine their future wealth. It presents the key guiding principles and thought patterns that millionaires live by and anybody who wants to get rich should adopt.
1.3.2.2. DON’Ts
1.3.2.2.1. Don't let them do drugs until 23. The frontal cortex isn't developed yet.
1.3.2.2.2. Don’t lie. Don’t even exaggerate. Always speak the truth. If you speak the things you believe are false and wrong then you mess up with their own consciousness and compass.
1.3.2.2.3. Don’t give tablets/phones to your kids until they pass 7. No screens in the house after a certain time (for everyone at home), except kindle for reading etc. Don’t let them use social media until they are at least 14. Humans require millions of face to face encounters to develop character. There is technically no need for for it. Kids on social media are more likely to lose interest in real world. Like trying new food or activity. Social media caused self harm is higher in females than males except for suicide in every age group. Psychological problems and non-lethal self harm have been increasing since the introduction of social media (2009). Technology has been a disadvantage for females more than males. Creators of these technologies don't let their children play with them.
1.3.2.2.4. Don’t be combative. Be courageous and assertive. Nurture with social skills.
1.3.2.2.5. Nihilism is inclined to lead to crime and destruction. Give them a purpose early.
1.3.2.2.6. Don’t chase after their wellbeing all the time. Or even if you do, don’t show it to them. They will take advantage of you.
1.3.2.2.7. Don't be a superstitious person. Feel free to enjoy the fun of metaphysics, but never be driven by it. Be scientific and factual.
1.3.2.2.8. Don’t work to be an employee. Work to learn and get experience. You can never be very successful by being an employee.
1.3.2.2.9. Remember, you were probably a worse child at their age.
1.3.2.2.10. The amount of money you spend and save also influences your children’s purchasing behavior. Every family has their own do’s and don’ts for investing and purchasing, and these budgets affect children who emulate their parents’ financial habits. So teach your children how to invest well and how to spend wisely!
1.3.2.2.11. Unlike those employing an entity approach, people with an incremental approach are far more likely to rise to a challenge. The difference between these two learning approaches was revealed in a study where children were given easy math problems to solve. All of them solved the problems correctly and progressed to the next round, where they received much more difficult problems that they were unable to solve. Children with an incremental approach were excited about the challenge, while children with an entity approach reported feeling discouraged. In the final round, the children were presented with easy problems once again. Those with an incremental approach solved them easily; in contrast, the children with an entity approach, suffering from decreased self-esteem after the second round, were unable to complete problems they would easily have been able to solve beforehand.
1.3.2.3. NOTES
1.3.2.3.1. First we need to figure out what we want to do in life, then go to college if we really want to. An excellent foundational education is important until high school, but not post graduate degree. Courses, certification programs can be much more valuable. You are too young to decide to know if you want design or engineering etc. So study something scientific or numeric and make sure you have great English skills. Later on in life, if you find a lot of value, you can always go back and study what you want with all that wisdom.
1.3.2.3.2. Boys and girls are equally aggressive. The only difference is boys are physical and girls are social. This leads to bigger events since one of them is temporary and the other one isn’t. Boys can play video games, shoot each other and the anger will be gone. The affects on girls are permanent (gossips, personality traumas, social media attacks etc.). Girls are more sensitive to social comparison. In order to compete in the status hierarchy and get more serotonin through validation they try to tease people around them more and spend more money on cosmetics very early. They tend focus on social improvements rather than personal improvements.
1.3.2.3.3. The number of children per family is decreasing and that is why the attention per child is higher. This makes children to grow up in safer and overprotected environments. As a result, they grow up alone without family ties. They do not experience living collectively. If you deprive your kids from threats and challenges you are not helping them. You are weakening them. This makes kids more paranoid, spoilt and misguided in the adulthood even if we live in a safer and more knowledgeable world. Kids should learn to self-govern themselves out of unpleasant situations. Kids used to go out, play, imagine, invent, share stories and argue with each other at the age of 5 to 8. They learned about being independent early and they became grown ups earlier. Now they are allowed to go out when they are at least 12. Because they don’t grow a thick skin, they become fragile later on.
1.3.2.3.4. You'll start off thinking you're pretty smart, then feel dumb for a long time, and finally realize that you were smart all along, maybe a bit inexperienced. You will grow distant from friends you thought you would have forever, but you will make new ones. You will start to realize that life is more or less a playground, just like it was when you were a kid. And that is really cool. You'll finally figure it out: it sucks balls trying to be someone who you are not. You will realize that human emotions drive everything that is important in life, but you will continue to struggle to understand exactly how those mysterious things work. Your child will go through the same. Be firm but gentle when they are discovering these things.
1.3.2.3.5. You disappoint your parents while you're growing up. You learn to live with that. You consult only yourself, even though that means you must rely on your own decisions. You take the degree you want to. You accept the burden of your own mistakes. You become your own person. You win. By rejecting your parent's vision, you develop your own. And then, as your parents age, you’ve become adult enough to be there for them, when they come to need you. They win, too. But both victories had to be purchased at the cost of the conflict engendered by your truth. It will be the same for you. You will be inclined often argue with your children, don't do that. Instead let them learn about life themselves just simply be there as a guide with your presence.
1.3.2.3.6. Growing up in a privileged environment can hinder a child’s chance of learning valuable life lessons. We assume that with richer parents and a more exclusive education, it becomes easier and easier for a child to grow up happy and healthy. However, a privileged background can, past a certain level, turn out to be counterproductive. One way this manifests is when parents have too much money, causing their children to lack independence. Because the children can rely on their parents’ wealth for the remainder of their lives, they don’t learn the importance of hard work and thinking for oneself. For example, a boy growing up with poor and frugal parents can learn harsh but valuable lessons about money by helping to pay for things or by working for the family business. This will galvanize him to gain qualifications or to start his own businesses in order to lift himself out of hardship. Another example is; the most exclusive education often prides itself on small class sizes. In a class of 40, not every child can attract the attention of the teacher, who has a gargantuan workload to manage; but as class size decreases, children can benefit from more attention, and grades therefore improve. Yet this doesn’t always guarantee better academic attainment: As class size decreases to 12 or fewer, children lose classmates whom they can learn from and interact with. In this case, there is scant discussion or divergent thinking. So while private schools lure parents with their intimate classrooms, their children will miss out on having a varied and lively learning environment. Another consequence of growing up with too much privilege. Traumatic experiences can spur people to achieve great things through increased courage and resilience in adulthood.
1.3.2.3.7. Imagine a society that they not only value but also encourage and challenge each other to learn more, excel more and produce more. And imagine a consumer nation that they are watching TV, spending time on useless information. One country will surpass the other. Humanity will flourish because of the culture. We as parents, should be able to give our kids that culture even if we don't come from that culture. In a perfect world, journalists would always present the news in a completely accurate way, and they’d give plenty of relevant context to make it even more impactful. But, we live in the real world, where journalists and influencers are in the business of attracting audience, and people love things to be both super simple and full of drama and perfection. As a result, our worldview and overall psychology has become skewed — a poor representation of what the world and life is really like.
1.3.3. RELATIONSHIPS
1.3.3.1. CHOOSING A PARTNER
1.3.3.1.1. Determine Your ideal Partner
1.3.3.1.2. Find "The Right One"
1.3.3.1.3. Set Your Priorities
1.3.3.1.4. Making Your Relationship Work
1.3.3.1.5. If you don’t picture yourself in future scenarios you’re less likely to form lasting bonds with someone.
1.3.3.1.6. If you pick your partner based on their looks, you will only end up making cute kids. Choose your match based on their intellect. Pick someone that you can drive each other towards each others goals.
1.3.3.1.7. If you are really attracted to someone at the beginning but then immediately lose your interest once you realize they like you too, it means there is something you need to improve in yourself. It means you are trying to satisfy something you are lacking by needing other people.
1.3.3.1.8. It’s a pyramid. The higher you are, the fewer potential partners you will find. It will get harder to find mates matching your standards and less people like yourself as you climb up the ladder. There is an unspeakably primordial calculator deep within you, at the very foundation of your brain, far below your thoughts and feelings. It monitors exactly where you are positioned in society. If you're a number one, the highest level of status, you're an overwhelming success. You have preferential access to the best places to live and the highest-quality food. People compete to do you favors. You have limitless opportunity for romantic and sexual contact. You have access to many high-quality suitors; creative, industrious, reliable, honest and generous.
1.3.3.1.9. Gradually, your sexual chemistry and attraction towards your partner may decay and mature into pure companionship. And that’s not a terrible thing because you don’t want to pick a life partner based on sex and attraction. You want to pick someone that you can chase after a future together. Everything else is a bonus. Everything else is also replaceable. Although that doesn’t mean they must be replaced. Ultimately, you only have to get along as close friends, brace challenges together and share the joy of victories. Attraction only helps this partnership to be enjoyable, thus endurable and successful.
1.3.3.1.10. Romeo and Juliet is perhaps the most famous love story in the world. And yet it’s hardly a happy one; it’s a rather chaotic story, involving murder, exile and blood feuds and it ends with both lovers committing suicide. The tragic tale of those star-crossed lovers highlights the destructive power of romantic love. Studies have shown that passionate, romantic relationships have a stimulating effect on the brain similar to that of cocaine. That is, you experience an intense high and then you crash back down. Then, you search again for the high, though not necessarily with the same person – a recipe for pain and anguish. Back in Shakespeare’s time, the dangers of romantic love were well known. The Bard may have even written Romeo and Juliet as a critique of romantic desire as a destructive passion. Right up to the nineteenth century, most relationships and marriages were based on the respective skill sets of both partners rather than their passionate love for each other. Of course, things are different now. Today, romantic love is often held up to be the ideal, and this can lead to heartbreak. So what can you do? Should you give up on the idea of romance altogether? Not quite. Romantic love can be either unhealthy or healthy depending on whether it fulfills specific criteria. Unhealthy love happens when each partner uses the relationship to run away from their problems. For example, they might be unhappy with their lives, and so they use their feelings for each other as a distraction. Unfortunately, no one can mask personal problems forever, and so this avoidance-as-passion inevitably turns sour. Healthy love, on the other hand, exists when both partners are wholly invested in the relationship. Rather than using it as a distraction, they are devoted to each other. Rather than concentrate on their own feelings, each partner offers support to their significant other. However, this support has to be desired. If a partner oversteps boundaries, and seeks to control the other by, for example, looking to solve all their problems for them, problems will ensue. If one partner seeks to dominate the other, this is clear evidence of unhealthy love.
1.3.3.1.11. We are attracted to consciousness, power and competence. Not in a tyrannical way. But in a nurturing and a protecting way. An inferior partner is more likely to downgrade your future offsprings. The only reason we might prefer passive partners are subconsciously having dominance over them and less confrontation, and more peace in the areas we personally deem important.
1.3.3.2. BREAKUPS
1.3.3.2.1. If you think your partner completes you or makes you better, then there are things you need to work on yourself, not the relationship. Purpose creates true happiness. Introduce goals and purposes for yourself. If you are so hung up on someone, other areas of your life are lacking. If you don’t have a grounded determination and personality, you will have obsessive thinking over other people. Work on yourself. If you devote all of your time for a person, new or past, you are setting up a failure again and again. Instead, get better everyday. Plan your goals and achieve them. Start the new chapter of your life and enjoy the process instead of suffering. Happiness is good for the body but it is grief which develops the strengths of the mind. The longest relation in your life will be with yourself. If you can enjoy life by yourself that means you have unlocked the greatest superpower. This will give you self-respect. However, this certainly does not mean to stop socializing.
1.3.3.2.2. Never threaten the relationship. It will implement a deep permanent seed in the subconscious mind.
1.3.3.2.3. You can be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world, and there’s still going to be people who hate peaches.
1.3.3.2.4. Sometimes we want to believe people are something that they are not. And by the time we realize who they are it is too late.
1.3.3.2.5. You can’t awaken someone who is pretending to be asleep. People can only change if they want to change. And when they want to change they change themselves. You cannot change them. Let everyone be themselves. Everybody lives their own choices.
1.3.3.2.6. Never fight for a place in people's life. When people value you, they will always keep a place free for you.
1.3.3.2.7. You can defeat 40 wisemen with 1 proof, but can't defeat 1 crazy person with 40 proofs. You need to choose your battles wisely because people will forget what you said and did, but never forget how you made them feel. Some fights are not worth fighting for.
1.3.3.2.8. There is a condition called Affectio Societatis in French law. Basically when two parties start to focus too much on the obstacles in the process of making a partnership work, they sometimes end up forgetting what they initially wanted. Affectio Societatis basically says: "Let’s first decide if we truly and honestly want to do this together. Because everything else can be solved later. Everything else is a technical problem and every technical problem has a technical solution."
1.3.3.2.9. We tend to judge others by their behavior, but ourselves by our intentions.
1.3.3.2.10. If you can’t get along with the person you want as a partner, if the relationship takes more energy than it adds to your life, if arguments are becoming a norm, you are simply not meant for each other. Better never means better for everyone. It’s probably a good thing that you broke up. Find someone that you share a mutual long-term vision about life. And keep in mind that most of the people don’t accurately know the future they want or tend to change their minds. So pick this person extremely carefully and unbiased. Love only makes things endurable. It helps things going. Your common goals matter.
1.3.3.2.11. In your whole life nobody has ever abused you more than you have abused yourself. And the limit of your self-abuse is exactly the limit that you will tolerate from someone else. If someone abuses you a little more than you abuse yourself, you will probably walk away from that person. But if someone abuses you a little less than you abuse yourself, you will probably stay in the relationship and tolerate it endlessly.
1.3.3.3. MARRIAGE
1.3.3.3.1. Marriage is a self-imposed barrier. It is a conscious trade-off to lock ourselves up for better long-term choices that we wouldn’t be able to make when we are independent and out of focus.
1.3.3.3.2. The tradition is functioning as a legal registration of a relationship. This concept makes the breakups harder and allows partners to protect the relationship. Marriage gives a strong sense of responsibility to partners due to the social and legal recognition that surrounds it. Although, the same conditions can be achieved without the marriage. Therefore, marriages and relationships are two independent concepts. One of them can end or start, without the other.
1.3.3.3.3. If the sex and romance have died in your current relationship, it is dangerous to be very close friends with a former partner. When you take chemistry out of the equation, it is no longer a differentiator between the current partner and the former. Technically both of those people are someone important in your life that you used to have a physical connection with. You are only good friends with both of them now. That stops making your current partner any special and that’s unfair.
1.3.3.3.4. Only 35% of the first marriages succeed in North America. However, only 19% of the divorced couples regret that they were married.
1.3.4. PERSONAL FINANCE
1.3.4.1. GENERAL
1.3.4.1.1. Imagine you have a job. You have to look at a painting on the wall for 40 hours a week. Just like a normal job, you are allowed to have lunch breaks or go to toilet. Sometimes you work for late hours, sometimes you have to work on the weekends. All you do is focusing on the painting. And they give you a decent salary for that. Now imagine you have been doing this job for 2-3 years. You are really getting bored. You raise this concern with your employer. They decide to give you a big 25% increase in salary. They promise to make your job a little more creative and complex. So they start to change the paintings you look at every week. They also ask you to measure the size of the paintings and compare it to the previous ones. They hire new people so your environment is a bit more social. Things are improving and you are getting paid better. 2 more years has passed. It is again getting a bit too repetitive but this time you are really bored. That’s it. You want to change your industry, the people around you, the operations and all. Fortunately, you receive a call one day and another company wants you, a known company. They look at your 5 years of experience and tell that you would be a great fit. This job offers a better pay too, you would be now pushing the salary of a senior manager. It is no longer about stupid paintings. You have to supervise other people looking at chairs, tables and rugs. They not only have to measure them but also weigh them and report their material too. So you make up your mind and give your resignation to your employer in no time. Now you have the new job. Your first year flies.. New people, different commute, and new things to learn. You also have new personal goals, standards and responsibilities in life. You want to travel a bit too. Your cost of living is higher. You realize you need to save some money for the next couple of years too. You stay in this company for 2 more years. Just about you were getting bored, they surprise you with a pay rise. You realize you are actually comfortable here and don’t really have much to complain. So you stay for another year. This story can go on and on, but let’s look at the bigger picture now. You spent a decade, staring at objects. A significant portion of your life is irreversibly gone. Your income was limited to your salary and your salary was average. First lesson is, salary is a drug they give you to forget about your dreams. Second lesson is you did not invest in yourself. You haven’t fulfilled your dreams. You probably didn’t even have time to think about what your true dreams are. You spent 10 years buying new clothes, new phones, paying for your car, paying your rent or mortgage. Your entire income was gone on your expenses. Nothing of it is left for you. The good news is life gives you a chance to make the same system work for you if you open your eyes and wake up. If you don’t surrender. Many people see entrepreneurship very risky, but not living a life is riskier. The ordinary man adapts himself to the world: the extraordinary one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the extraordinary man. You will need to invest in things until you no longer need a paycheck. You can buy all the useless things later when you achieve financial freedom.
1.3.4.1.2. Formal education will make you a living, but self-education will make you a fortune.
1.3.4.1.3. Always try to find ways to lessen your tax burden
1.3.4.1.4. If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you can't.
1.3.4.1.5. Wealth isn’t just about how much you earn. The path to getting rich is making more than you spend and investing the difference. And making sure to invest that difference in things that produce things (e.g. stock market, partnering startups, buying shops, doing your own side business). This way you practically clone yourself that works on other things. So if you want to become wealthier than the average person, you can’t spend like the average person. You have to spend less and invest the rest.
1.3.4.1.6. Money isn’t everything but without money you are nothing. It is the only manmade objective reality that everybody believes. Not everybody believes in human rights, not everybody believes in same manners. Not everybody believes the same religion. But everybody believes in money. If you speak the language of money you speak to everyone and start to solve big problems.
1.3.4.1.7. Preparing your fire plan allows you to make major decisions in advance, and will help keep you focused and make better decisions in the event of a threat.
1.3.4.1.8. Only insure against things that can kill you financially Insurance companies behave like douchebag cheating husbands. They sweet-talk new customers, showering them with discounts and gifts, while treating their faithful wives at home (that’s you, the existing customer) like dirt. The easiest money you’ll make is calling them each year and telling them you’re thinking of switching. You (googling ‘best offer’ + the name of your insurance company): And I see you’re offering a 15 per cent discount to new customers who join before the end of the month ... Insurance rep: That’s only for new customers, sir. You: Well, paint me red and call me Randy — I’m your newest customer.
1.3.4.2. UNDERSTAND YOUR CASH FLOW
1.3.4.2.1. The Income Types
1.3.4.2.2. 5 Types of People
1.3.4.2.3. 5 Destinations of Money
1.3.4.3. SPENDING
1.3.4.3.1. In 1972, Stanford University studied delayed gratification under a project called Marshmallow Test. They gave marshmallows (or pretzels, whichever the kids preferred) to 300 children and told them they can get two marshmallows if they waited for 15 minutes. About 90% of the kids couldn’t or didn’t wait. They decided to eat it right away. In follow-up studies, the researchers found that the children who were able to wait longer tended to have better life outcomes, as measured by SAT scores, educational attainment, health & physique, and other life measures in their adulthood. Success comes from working with long-term systems, rather than short-term gratification. Unfortunately 90% of us cannot do this and winner takes all.
1.3.4.3.2. Never use credit to buy things. This also means never get a personal credit card. You can get a debit card but not a credit card. Use credit only for investing. Nothing else. All the attractive reward programs are meticulously calculated to suck your money even more. Credit is borrowing money from your future self. If you are not expecting to increase your income in near future then why are you sacrificing from your future? If you really want to buy something that you can't afford now, then save until you can. Because that's when you deserve it, not when you don't have money for it. There is a 90% chance that there will be something else you will want next month. Poor people use debt to buy things that make rich people richer. Don’t splurge. Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification — then you learn to value it differently. We use digital entertainment, religion and luxury to hide from an indifferent, meaningless world. Try not to splurge. You have to make the shift in the economy from being the consumer to becoming a producer — and you do it by becoming an investor that generates more value. SIDE NOTE: This applies for businesses and even governments too. When countries borrow money they often make the mistake of spending it on public services to suppress the unrest instead of investing to grow. Thus, remain poor for decades.
1.3.4.3.3. Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of the world you want. Consider what you are supporting every time you spend money. If you donate money to a homeless person you will be creating more homeless people. But if you spare some change to the subway musician you will hear beautiful live music every morning on your way to work. What you buy matters. Consumer dictates the free market.
1.3.4.3.4. Even if you invest in wrong things that turn out to be unsuccessful, it is still better than spending. Every time. But understand the difference between gambling and investing.
1.3.4.3.5. Many millionaires don’t live the high life. They budget wisely to maintain their affluence. If you were a millionaire, you wouldn’t hesitate to wear Prada and drink Champagne every day for breakfast, right? But despite the stereotypes, many actual millionaires purchase fewer expensive items than you do – and they are happy doing so. If you want to become a millionaire, you’ve got to learn to save responsibly at the moment when you first start to earn more money than you need to live on. They’ve practiced at thinking long term and planning for the future. A survey of millionaires found that for every 100 millionaires who weren't budgeting and thinking about their financial future, there were 140 millionaires who certainly were. Planning and structuring expenses is key if you want to become a millionaire. To start, set a goal, such as having a certain amount of cash tucked away for retirement. Then budget your expenses, living costs and investments. Smart spending also means smart planning. Millionaires spend a greater amount of time planning investments and often reap more benefits from them than those who neglect to plan. Moreover, if you want to increase your wealth by investing in specific businesses, you’ll need to plan as well as get some expertise. Everyone has at least one area in which they have considerable knowledge, so use this to your advantage when investing. For example, Mrs. Smith is an auctioneer who specializes in commercial real estate. Which industry should she invest in? Commercial real estate, of course. Mr. Long however knows a lot about antique furniture. Should he invest in high-tech securities? Probably not, as he should stick to what he knows best.
1.3.4.3.6. Money is just an extension of your personality. The more money you have the more enabled you are to feed your desires. Money does not change mentality. It does not change behavior. It only adds fuel to your underlying habits and character. Therefore, if you are a person with growth mindset, you will grow. If you have an ordinary mindset, you will shrink. It is that simple. Problem with poor people is not the lack of money, it is always their mindset. If you destroy all the money of someone with a growth mindset, they will eventually be rich again. Because they know how to invest in their personal and financial growth. They are programmed to grow. On the other hand, if you take all the money of an ordinary person they will remain poor. Because you can lose your money but not your knowledge and character. This is another reason why people should deserve money first. They should learn how to make a lot of money before they are given any. In the United States, 87% of the lottery winners went back to their original net worth within the first 5 years. People spend their fortunes on beauty, liabilities (e.g. house improvements, better car), entertainment, food, tech, holidays and everything else they see online or on TV. They only improved their life standards but did not technically grow. Money is only an amplifier to our habits. An investors purpose is not to have a million dollar yacht, it is reinvesting again. Owning a yacht becomes only a result of it. And if you try to explain this to an average person they will only get defensive and try to justify their purchasing decisions. If you don’t fix the average person mentality, national wealth distribution becomes pointless, because people won’t change habits. Only proper education fixes mentality. That’s why education must be free, contemporary and mandatory. That is the best parenting a government can do for its citizens. That is also why this entire project is publicly accessible and free.
1.3.4.3.7. Picture the car you think the average millionaire drives. Is it a Porsche? A Ferrari? A top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz? If that’s your best guess, you’re way off. The average American millionaire drives a Toyota. Nothing loses its value as quickly as a car fresh from the dealership. So, if you’re trying to cut down on your expenses and want to get serious about saving money, never buy brand new cars. Instead, shop around and buy something that’s already been around the block a few times. A well-maintained second-hand vehicle should be more than enough for your needs. According to Thomas Stanley, an American wealth researcher, most million-dollar homes aren’t owned by millionaires. Instead, those houses usually belong to non-millionaires with high standards and even higher mortgage payments. In fact, only 10 percent of millionaires own homes worth more than a million dollars. Simply put, wealthy people are generally frugal people, and their lifestyles are often nothing like the lavish ones we associate with the rich. Because they spend little, they can afford to invest a lot. That’s the real trick to growing your wealth.
1.3.4.4. INVESTING
1.3.4.4.1. 1) CASH SAVINGS Never ever keep your money in the form of cash for savings purposes. Regardless of the currency type or the interest rate. Period. Cash does not produce anything and constantly loses value against time. Inflation depreciates it every single day. Your $100 today will be equivalent to $70 in 10 years. The interest rate banks give only tracks this inflation rate. So the very best case scenario, your money will only resist to losing value under a savings account. Nothing more. You should keep your money in other channels and convert to cash only when you need to spend it. E.g. Don’t allow yourself to keep more than 2-3 months of living costs in the form of cash.
1.3.4.4.2. Goods & services are the real economy, any form of money is simply the accounting thereof.
1.3.4.4.3. 2) COMMODITIES Goods & services are the real economy, any form of money is simply the accounting thereof. Think of investments as value generating things not valuable things. Commodities are just a different type of cash. They don’t grow or produce anything over time. They are valuable but they don't generate value. Take gold for example. The entire gold in the world can fill two Olympic swimming pools and that's it. It does not generate anything valuable. Just like cash, it just sits there. It creates no value like a business or a country can. And it is value that makes money. The true worth of gold is always the same. Humans will never need more gold on earth to survive or progress. It is not even a medium for trading and commerce anymore. The goal is to invest in things that produce value. Commodities sometimes increase in value and that’s why people think of them as a good investment. The only two reasons commodities increase in value are (1) dystopians and (2) inflation. Things like gold are traditional assets that people buy for the sake of diversifying their portfolio, preparing for war, hype or a market crash. And even if there was a chaotic hyperinflation in a country, gold still wouldn’t be valuable. People would just barter instead as we have seen in Venezuela. Don’t buy commodities. If you really want to buy some, make sure it is under 5% of your portfolio.
1.3.4.4.4. 3) CRYPTOCURRENCIES The unpredictable worth of cryptos are based on hype and hype only. Hype is a very unreliable factor when it comes to evaluations. No one knows if crypto value will increase or decrease tomorrow. They are incalculable because there is no true value behind them. Even if cryptos become the new medium of exchange, investing cryptos will be no different to forex or saving cash. Things that don't generate value are always bad investments. None of the wisest investors hold cryptos because of this reason. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Ray Dalio, Charlie Munger have zero investments in cryptos. Personalities like Elon Musk like to challenge the world order for fun because of their character and invincible wealth. Illusion becomes a reality. When you are confident enough you won’t be upset for the lost opportunities that were out of your area of expertise. Focus on what you know. Focus on logical investments and forget about building wealth based on luck.
1.3.4.4.5. 4) PROPERTIES Size of the earth stays the same while the world population is expected to increase up to 11 billion by 2090 until it plateaus. Basic demand and supply rule applies here too. Properties can be fantastic investments but they are slow to buy & sell. This another reason they require professional research by multiple subject experts. Even an average property investment can help you a lot in the long run. If you invest 25% of your income paying off the mortgage of a house with a tenant in (paying rent regularly), you can own the house in 5 years. After paying off the house, you will have increased your current income by 15% because of the rent. With your new increased income, if you keep doing the same for another 10 years, you will have 3 properties that keep increasing in value while increasing your current cash flow by 50%. And that will be the best income type, a passive income. Be creative, these numbers get even better when you charter yachts and sailboats for example. Rule of Thumb: The monthly rent of the property you are willing to buy should be at least 0.7% of the property value. E.g. If you are buying a flat today for $1,000,000 make sure the the rental income of that property at least $7,000. So a city like Detroit, reliant on its automobile industry, saw property prices decline in real terms between 1980 and 2015. Meanwhile, San Francisco, home to many Silicon Valley businesses, and a city rich in intangible assets, saw property prices rise almost 150 percent between 1980 and 2015. In this way, the clustering of intangible-intensive businesses in cities has driven rising property prices, and wealth inequality. The growth of the intangible economy can help explain the rise of wealth inequality. That’s because a key driver of wealth inequality is simply rising property values. And property values haven’t risen uniformly, but disproportionately in cities where intangible investment and spillovers, and therefore innovation, are high.
1.3.4.4.6. 5) STOCKS Investing in stocks should be like watching a grass grow. If you want excitement grab $1000 and go to Las Vegas. Looking at complex charts & analytics is short-sighted. It’s pointless. You should avoid investing short term and day-trading. It will drive you crazy. Even the smartest and the most experienced economists with advanced computer algorithms can’t predict what is going to happen tomorrow. Things are very volatile, there are too many factors to consider and you will never be the person to hear the news first. You will consume your time and energy bothering too much about small movements. You can’t forecast the weather two weeks from now, but you know that ten years later the summer is going to be warm. Instead of trying to be tactical, be strategic. Ignore the little gossips and insider news you hear from here and there. You are focusing on predictable, secure long-term growth. Once you buy stocks or ETF, hold them for at least a few years. Forget about them. They will do their job. Don’t check them more than once a month. If you do your homework right and guarantee the stability of the company you will be confident in the darkest hours. Look at the big picture. Look at the future trajectory of a stock. In order to understand the future trajectory, look at the past. Look at the historical performance of a company before investing. Search for steady growth. Make sure you are seeing a high-growth trend line in 10-year, 5-year, 2-year and 1-year periods constantly. Don’t waste your time looking at the performance of the last 2 weeks or 5 months. Ideally a company should grow at least 30% every year. If a company has been growing %30 regularly since 1971 (for half a century) what do you think is likely going to happen next year? There are companies that fail to meet this criteria (e.g. Enron) but if you have about 40 diversified companies in your portfolio, even if a couple of them fail, the rest will keep growing. Diversifying your portfolio doesn't mean investing in different things for the sake of diversification. Imagine you are building a basketball team. Your team would be full of athletic tall players. You wouldn't pick slow, short, stupid, fat basketball players. You would only aim for successful track record players. Only invest in the US market. It is the only steady-growth market. All the markets in the world are unstable and too small compared to the US market. US stock market is so gigantic, even the richest countries invest in the US market instead of their own countries. Biggest international companies establish their HQ in the USA for this reason. This way they can attract more investors. That’s why US is the investment hub of the world. Don’t think of any other country. Trust the market. USA have survived the Great Depression, housing crisis, market crashes, terrorist attacks, pandemics, wars and recovered stronger every time. Don’t panic. Patience wins. Make this a rule of thumb.
1.3.4.4.7. 6) ETFs ETFs work just like stocks. The only difference is they represent a mix of stocks. They are baskets of stocks with certain proportions. Since they include a mix of stocks, the diversification is already done for you. Avoid buying an ETF arranged by a bank because they cut huge management fees. Try buying ETFs from private companies like Vanguard, iShares etc. They are honest, transparent and work with zero commission rates. S&P500 represents average score of the top 500 best performing companies in the US stock market. If you don’t know anything about investing, simply invest on an S&P500 ETF. They have been growing steadily about 12% every year since 1931 compared to the US dollar, inflation rate included! The only reason you would buy a stock and not the market ETF is because if you think the stock will perform better than the market. Otherwise just buy the market (ETF). E.g. keep your cash in the form of ETF (low risk, low growth) and your investments in stocks (medium risk, medium growth). Unfortunately, once you take fees and taxes into account, about 96 percent of traders do worse than the stock market as a whole. You’ll probably find that your index fund investments perform better than the stocks you picked yourself in the long run. John Bogle collected all the stock-market movements since 1885. He sat down with the data and began to comb through the history books. Unfortunately, even with all the records in front of him, he couldn’t account for most of the puzzling fluctuations or explain what caused the market to rise on some days and fall on others. And if a professor of finance can’t explain market changes with the benefit of data, historical reports, and years of hindsight, your chances of predicting future trends are practically zero. Also, Warren Buffet once said: “After nearly 50 years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently.” when he was asked about timing the market. The bottom line is that gambling with your savings isn’t wise. So do yourself a favor and learn from other people’s mistakes by staying clear of trying to beat the market. When it comes to investing your money, the best option is to choose index funds. It’s really that simple – but for some people, it’s a hard program to follow. PS. Don't get into leveraged ETFs. That's for traders, not investors.
1.3.4.4.8. 7) NATIONAL TREASURY BONDS & BILLS Governments need money for big projects like building nuclear energy reactors or space programs, and sometimes the tax income is not enough. Just like a corporation or an individual, governments borrow money and get credit too. This credit is a debt. Since they can't go to a bank for this money, they issue a public bond for their expenses and offer a repayment plan against this bond. This is when people become the bank and governments owe money to them. Just like getting a loan, bonds have maturity dates as well. Treasury bonds have an interest rate as well as a coupon payment. Coupon payments are little bonuses paid periodically and interest rate (or the yield) is the final money paid when the bond matures. This way governments can raise funds for their projects and investors can buy these bonds (government debt) to make more money in the future. When the interest rate of a bond is high this means smaller investment is needed to make the same money at the end of the maturity. For example: Bond A has a maturity in 1 year. The interest rate of this bond is 12%. Investors will pay $89 to get $100 at the end. Bond B has a maturity in 1 year. The interest rate of this bond is 15%. Investors will pay $86 to get $100 at the end. Therefore, Bond B is cheaper than Bond A, but has higher interest rate. When the maturity term is longer (i.e 10 years or more), governments make the interest rate higher to attract investors because as it pays back the investor after a very long time. When the interest rate between the long-term and short-term bonds are not that great, this often signals that the government is unable to offer attractive options. This happens because government thinks they may not have that much cash in the future. This often signals that a recession or inflation is coming soon. This scares and negatively impacts the stock market. Keep an eye on 10-yr bond yields. If they increase a lot, a bubble might be about to burst. If there you are expecting high inflation buy inverse long term (20+ years) treasury bonds.
1.3.4.4.9. 8) YOUR OWN VENTURE
1.3.4.4.10. 9) NETWORK MARKETING & PONZI SCHEMES Stay away at all costs.
2. YOUR SURROUNDINGS
2.1. MEANING OF LIFE & EXISTENCE
2.1.1. PURPOSE
2.1.1.1. 1. PURPOSE OF UNIVERSE Imagine a piece of rock with no life forms on it – simply floating in the void with no purpose. How significant, important or purposeful would that rock be? Not at all. Now let's add a simple life form on it. Imagine a planet of zebras. In this planet, there is nothing but zebras. How significant is the contribution of this planet to the universe? Would this planet be any more significant than the floating rock? Probably not. Equally insignificant. What makes our planet so different is not the trees or the fish. Any form of intelligence and cognitive ability that progresses over time by communicating the previously gained knowledge can be considered significant in the universe. Consciousness, civilization and competency makes the planet Earth different. Currently only the human race makes it meaningful. Probably, the universe wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a significant meaning because it would be easier to not have anything in the first place. Nothingness does not require any effort or energy. But things do exist. Therefore, nature exists to support the significant ones to grow. It only awaits to be discovered more and our civilization has just begun exploring in the last few thousand years which is nothing compared to the age of universe. Nature is lethal. It works in a very simple rule. Prevail or die. What evolution did for 3.5 billion years in order to create us was to create as many variables as possible first and destroy the unfit. Nature destroys most of its experiments. It keeps doing this to this day. The ones that died compared to the survived is more than 99%. Nature kills almost everything continuously. If we don’t adapt to our surroundings and improve, we will be perished by the nature. There is a lot of suffering in the nature but there is no room for emotions. Universe only seeks to create the best.
2.1.1.2. 2. PURPOSE OF HUMAN RACE The purpose of human race is continual progression and advancement at all costs. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t evolve, and simply remain as apes. There wouldn't be technology or science. While we usually invent things for our laziness, convenience and health, it is the hard workers that develop us further. Our curiosity and greed drives us. That's why the satisfied, lazy, unproductive, aimless people are rewarded less by the nature and the society. Each generation sets a new baseline of knowledge and tools to its successors. This continuous loop leads to further discoveries and improvements. That’s why we are here to learn, improve and pass on, collectively. Until we find an answer. Until we solve 'it'. Ideas move on from person to person. That’s why they are immortal. Information is the only thing that does not lessen by sharing. “I” passes insensibly into a “we”, “my” becomes “our” and individual fate loses its central importance as time moves on. When we serve for something greater than ourselves we will be ready to sacrifice anything or work harder. E.g. pyramids, medicine, interplanetary travel etc. Food for thought: Stuff like artificial neural networks can be built. There has to be a way to duplicate how our brains work because the fact that our brains work is a first hand proof. And it’s not magic what happens inside our brains, it’s physics and chemistry. In time we will be able mimic how we store and process information. When we are able to do that we can copy and transfer an image of our consciousness, thus become immortal and travel deeper into the space to continue our exploration in a different form.
2.1.1.3. 3. PURPOSE ON INDIVIDUAL LEVEL Meaning of an individual’s life is to give life a meaning. To find a way to contribute to the greater purposes. It is foolish to overthink deeply about the things you cannot know. We are driving and exploring in the dark to a destination, but headlights can only illuminate up to 100 meters. Thinking about the purpose of life too much will drive you crazy and turn you into a nihilistic person in the end. You will lose your motivation. As Earth is not the center of the universe and life can seem bereft of ultimate meaning. Yet we can certainly create meaning and the beauty of this is that each of us can choose what that meaning is. To find your meaning you need an ultimate goal in life to focus on. The end goal is irrelevant, as long as it immerses you fully in increasingly complex challenges, allowing you to disregard others’ opinions and contribute to society. One way or another, directly or indirectly, everyone helps the greater goal of the human race. So it is worthwhile to make it fun and "meaningful”. If you have a big enough why to live for, you can bear almost any how. Standards are necessary. Without them, there is nowhere to go and nothing to do. That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. A nurse in Australia, who later a wrote a book, said she spent a long time in hospitals with a lot of elderly people before they died. Their single most common regret was their unfulfilled dreams. You can do anything you want. Fall in love with success and learn from mistakes. The more you achieve the more you will want to achieve, and the more confidence and eagerness you will have in life to learn and master a new thing. Just know the difference between Just in Case information and Just in Time information because thinking too far ahead is like guessing all the chess moves. There is no perfect decision, there is no right or wrong. There is just life. You need to fight the dragon to save the village. If getting beaten wasn’t a possibility it wouldn’t be a real fight. Find a difficult meaning and chase after that. Not after happiness. Happiness cannot be your life goal because there will be many times you won’t be happy. You can’t have a goal that can be demolished. You want a meaning that justifies the suffering because life is programmed to beat you down. Your ‘why' most likely comes from your pain. Whatever was the most painful thing in your life probably created a why. The problem is we focus too much on happiness and that takes our focus from productivity and meaning. Your best bet is often the truth. It is a good starting point but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’ll do the trick. Life is hard and people get run over. Not everybody is born to win. You might feel like you are afraid of taking the risk but you should be more afraid of staying where you are and feel miserable and admire others. Once you get it, it beats the living through it. And pain becomes an old friend. The probability that you are gonna get it right the first time is close to zero. So enjoy making mistakes. Life is only a game. Your ideas might be stupid but your journey isn’t. You don’t want to be safe and secure in life, you want to be strong. Not giving up is of one of the most important things that will make you a winner. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Everybody dies but not everybody really lives. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. If you want to matter and leave a legacy then live legendary and purposefully. The greater question is thus, what do you want from life? Because the meaning of an individual’s life is to give life a meaning.
2.1.2. OBJECTIVE REALITY
2.1.2.1. Objective reality is what simple animals can observe as much as humans can. Like a rainfall, or a water flowing. It is what you see or hear. When you fall, it hurts. It is objective to the observer’s dimension. You can observe objective reality only with your 5 senses and without thinking. Objective reality is neutral. It has no judgements. To a tree there is no concept of right or wrong or good or bad. You are born and you have a whole set of sensory experiences, stimulation, lights and colors, sounds and then you die. And how you interpret that is up to you. You do have that choice. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you. That's why happiness is a choice. If you understand why it is a choice then you can start working on it. Nature does not have a subjective reality. It does not have stories or fictions. There is no crime in nature because there are no laws. There is no science because there are no explanations or advanced tools. There is no description because there are no words or language in the nature. It is objective to all.
2.1.3. SUBJECTIVE REALITY
2.1.3.1. Subjective realities are the type of realities that are created by humans. Computer games, religion, borders, law, art, companies, norms, human rights are all fictions. Subjective realities bind people together or make them fight against each other. Knowledge is the only thing humans created from nothing. That's why if you question anything enough, eventually you’ll begin to doubt it.
2.1.3.1.1. 70,000 years ago our impact on the planet was not greater than jellyfish or mosquitoes. Today, we are in charge of this planet. How did we rise to this position? One might say there is something about our brain or our body that makes us so superior to a pig or a dog. The truth is, on the individual level a chimp is more competent and more likely to survive on an island than a human. What makes humans superior is not on the individual level, it's on the collective level. Humans are the only animals that can cooperate both creatively and collectively in large numbers. There are other animals that can work in large numbers like bees or ants but they are rigid in their thinking. And the creative ones like wolves or dolphins work together but only in small numbers. Their group size remain small because their cooperation is based on the intimate knowledge of one another. In order to work together two chimps must know each other personally. That’s why 1 chimp can be better than 1 human in the wild, but 1000 humans will always be superior than 1000 chimps. In fact, putting 1000 chimps in the same place will create chaos and putting 1000 humans together will bring extremely sophisticated networks and order. All the huge achievements of human kind throughout history whether it's building the pyramids or flying to the moon have been based on the ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. Great. But how do we do it? Why other animals fail to do this and we do not? The answer is simple. Imagination. Our ability to believe in shared fiction. Our ability to create Subjective Realities. We can create stories and the high number of subscribers to the idea will give a life to the idea. Crusades, politics, projects, culture are all a result of countless numbers of strangers believing in the same story. Companies are a result of strangers working together for the same fiction, trying to turn something into a reality. Language is a result of human imagination accepted by many other strangers. Money, for example, is not an objective reality. It does not have a value. You cannot wear it, you cannot eat it. Cats won’t understand it. It is a result of master storytellers that make the majority of us to do the things we would not do 5 days a week if we did not have to. Money is the only story everybody believes. Not everybody believes in God, not everybody believes in human rights, not everybody believes in nationalism, but everybody believes in money. We humans live in multiple realities while other animals only live in the objective reality. Their reality consists of rivers and trees. We humans accept this but over the centuries, we have constructed and prioritized different layers of realities on top of the objective reality.
2.1.3.2. Sometimes we get too attached to our small little routines and systems. When we lose them it gets uncomfortable, sometimes unbearable. But it is truly beautiful to admire the bigger machine that is running and we are part of. And that’s how evolution happens. The new version update. Termination of the previous one.
2.2. FUNDAMENTALS OF POLITICS
2.2.1. KNOW YOUR POLITICAL STANCE
2.2.1.1. Political Views Table Explained
2.2.1.2. Political Views Table
2.2.2. INEQUALITY
2.2.2.1. If all the cells in human body functioned exactly the same they wouldn’t form anything but a big lump of meat. Only when cells act and behave differently, siloed, we see complex bio-structures and sophisticated organs such as lungs and muscles and neurons. When billions of cells work in different areas in the body they serve for a greater purpose. However, the key takeaway is not the cell diversity here. Adaptability and interdependence of the cells are equally important. Cells that rebel to this system are called cancer. Systems need to function individually while being able to co-work. A hand chopped off cannot write a letter by itself. A brain in a lab jar cannot think. The symphony works for progression. Our culture confuses man’s desire for achievement and competence with the patriarchal desire for tyrannical power and that is a big mistake. Everybody has a different duty and everybody must excel at their job. You need to encourage cooperated competition within and in between societies to progress. Demand for equality is to flatten the hierarchies and that’s wrong. Hierarchies are necessary. When you or your loved one has a brain tumor you want to get the best doctor. That’s why you need a hierarchy of competence. We are programmed to want more and progress. We should have a reason to strive for more otherwise humanity will remain the same for millions of years to come. The same desire made the man go to invent the internet, mathematics and music.
2.2.2.2. It’s winner-take-all in the animal kingdom, just as it is in human societies, where the top 1 percent have as much loot as the bottom 50 percent — and where the richest eighty-five people have as much as the bottom three and a half billion. That same brutal principle of Unequal Distribution applies outside the financial domain—indeed, anywhere that creative production is required. The majority of scientific papers are published by a very small group of scientists. A tiny proportion of musicians produces almost all the recorded commercial music. Similarly, just four classical composers (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky) wrote almost all the music played by modern orchestras. Just a handful of authors sell all the books. A million and a half separately titled books sell each year in the US. However, only five hundred of these sell more than a hundred thousand copies. We are not equal in ability or outcome, and never will be. A very small number of people produce very much of everything. And that's natural. The winners don’t take all, but they take most, and the bottom is not a good place to be. People are unhappy at the bottom. They get sick there, and remain unknown and unloved. They waste their lives there. They die there.
2.2.2.3. Some people (and sometimes even countries) will always have to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. It does not matter what demographic category they belong to. Success and vision are often ancestral and environmental. It is less likely to be successful if you are coming from an unsuccessful environment. You really have to outperform your own group in order to thrive and climb up the ladder. Because of this, historically poorer groups tend to reproduce into poor generations. A truly anti-racist opinion does not care what demographic minority is at the bottom since we are biologically equal. Somebody will just have to remain at the bottom. Ideas are peaceful, and history is violent.
2.2.2.4. In order to be able to think we need to be candid and risk being offensive. Having said that, anger, just like any other emotion, drives out reason. It is counterproductive in a debate. The two sides should not hate each other. It’s the same when it comes to political views. Governments should care for the ones that are left behind (to a degree) to maintain the peacetime as well as the manpower.
2.2.2.5. Victims are not always the good side. Privileged people should not be demonized. Compassion is sometimes nothing but a word to intimidate the strong. Lost and weak minds can offend you, ignore them at all costs unless they are a threat, or an opportunity.
2.2.2.6. Sending more people to jail hasn't proven to be a crime deterrent. In fact, it actually increases crime. A study found that if more than 2 percent of people in a community are sent to jail in one year, the crime rate the following year actually increases, although correlation does not equal causation. Those they leave behind – children, siblings, spouses – are worse off psychologically and financially, resulting in a more vulnerable community. And the children of a parent sent to jail are more likely to turn toward crime themselves, as they lack strong role models and financial security. People disobey authorities they perceive as enemies, but obey those whom they perceive as fair and humane. If authorities are seen as an adversary, people will be less likely to obey their laws. For example, a study of African American males born in the 1970s shows that as many as 69 percent of them who dropped out of school spent time in prison. Harsh punishments given out to one community led many of its members to regard the police and legal system as being unfair and unrepresentative. It became a badge of honor for the friends and family members of the jailed men to stand up to the authorities who deprived them of their loved ones. For example, in 2003 a New York police force set up a base within a housing project overrun with juvenile crime in order to deal with the problem up close. The officers got to know some of the young people better than their own families did; they offered to get them back to school and helped them with jobs and health. Despite initial difficulties, the unit, who even gave out Thanksgiving turkeys to everyone, finally ingratiated themselves with residents. The result was massive decreases in theft and other crimes because the police were no longer viewed as the enemy.
2.2.2.7. If a society is driven by emotions instead of logic they won’t prevail. We have world peace today because of science and intelligence, compared to Middle Age driven by religion and emotions.
2.2.2.8. In an intangible economy, ideas can fuse together, creating valuable synergies and new ways of doing things. The science writer Matt Ridley once said that innovation is what happens when ideas have sex. It’s certainly true that new innovations can be born from different ideas coming together in unexpected ways. Most innovations are the result of synergies – a combination of one idea with another that results in something either entirely new or radically better than what existed before. The importance of synergies in an intangible economy has clear implications for policy makers, because establishing national and local economies that can exploit synergies brings big benefits. For instance, a business’s innovations in research or production processes are more valuable when other local businesses are also coming up with great ideas, because it will be easier to find synergies. That’s one reason why Silicon Valley is so productive; when there are lots of businesses, in a small area, investing in research and new ideas, it encourages a virtuous circle of innovation. Encouraging ideas to have sex. Economies that succeed in an intangible-rich world will be those that maximize synergies and innovation while maintaining a healthy flow of investment.
2.2.3. THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT
2.2.3.1. If you are going to pursue things that are valued in a social environment you are going to create a hierarchy because some people will be better at whatever you value. When you do that you are dispossessing a number of people because they are not good at what you value. You need a political voice for those who remain at the bottom. That’s the left. Left is needed so the bottom don’t suffer and rebel. We need the hierarchy to function as a system but we need it under control before it gets out of control. So a balanced gap between the top and the bottom is crucial.
2.2.3.2. You don’t want to let the victory defeat you. Rich countries get comfortable. Comfort makes people lazier. It’s hard to roll out of bed at 4 am and do road work wearing silk pajamas. The more comfort we have the more we concentrate on rights, privileges and impulsive pleasure. While these are all useful in place, they are shallow and that’s not good because if people are shallow storms wreck them, and storms do come along. If you can't establish that foundation and you lose the sense of orderliness in your life, your life will become harder than it needs to be. This is maturity. Adults need to be mature because no one likes an old infant.
2.2.3.3. We should always aim to move forward until we can’t. We don’t want to stay in the same place forever. Capitalism is great for competitive human race, thus progression. Communism is where the state controls the means of production which means the state has the influence on what you should produce, and not the market or your free will. Too much power always creates tyranny. This can be the government or the corporations. The problem is often extremism and not either of the school of thoughts.
2.2.3.4. Privatizing common resources like electricity or water is not dangerous as long as they are sold to domestic businesses and not to overseas. When they are sold to offshore businesses the national GDP starts to leak.
2.2.3.5. You can’t have universities (or even businesses to a degree) filled with extreme fundamentalist people because they are not in the factual, scientific paradigm.
2.2.3.6. Imagine there is an event. The host decided to include an entry fee of $100 for alcohol and food expenses. You are on a diet and you are driving so you can’t drink or eat. Would you attend or not? It depends on how important the event is for you. Paying taxes are the same. There is a huge bucket of expenses. Some of them are in your favor and some of them aren’t. Governments are hypothetically corporations. Some of this tax goes to politician pockets and sometimes the means are used for really useful things. Ideally the best option is the subscription method. You should be able to pay tax only for the things you want to benefit from such as healthcare or law enforcement. Or in contrast, you can decide to get your own private health insurance or personal bodyguards. This is called Selective Taxation at an individual level. You subscribe to the tax packages you want to as a citizen (TV broadcasts, education, roads). While this idea sounds good there will be corruption and leakages in any system. Additionally, governments can't support big projects by partial support by the citizens. In order to run bigger projects people will have to pay for the taxes for the things they don't like to at some point.
2.2.3.7. History shows that order tends to decay and that causes chaos. Then chaos finds order to be functional. That's the Yin Yang of it. Chaos in order and order in chaos. Left wing vs right wing. It's the same bird. In the West, where the life is easy, we have been withdrawing from our tradition, religion and nation-centered cultures, partly to decrease the danger of group conflict. But we are increasingly falling prey to the desperation of meaninglessness, and that is no improvement at all. People need orderliness, otherwise chaos beckons. We require rules, standards, values—alone and together. We’re pack of animals, beasts of burden. We must bear a load, to justify our existence in the universe. We require routine and tradition. But order can become excessive, tyranny can arise and that’s not good, but chaos can swamp us, so we drown—and that is also not good. We need to stay on the straight and narrow path. Line between order and chaos. That’s where we are simultaneously stable enough, exploring enough, transforming enough, repairing enough, and cooperating enough. Goldilocks zone.
2.2.3.8. Capitalism made us built everything we see around us. The good and the bad. We have the good fortune to live in a capitalist society, each of us has the capability to carry out our dreams. However, extreme left or right are equally harmful. Capitalism is irrelevant to the progressive taxation. Governments need to reallocate some of the resources through progressive taxes and regulations. When you distribute wealth, it helps the poor to survive, stay healthy and educated. This way the bottom can breathe and work. When people work, it helps the companies in two ways: (1) By having smarter people work for them, and (2) by having people that can buy from them. Furthermore, when people start to earn money the civil unrest, theft and crime decrease. Unemployment drops and economy is stimulated. This allows everyone to live in peace.
2.2.3.9. 50 people live on an island. On the island is a fresh water spring, but there is a 3 ton rock on top of it. If the rock could be removed, everybody could have fresh water to drink. While nobody can move it alone and it takes dozens of people tugging with a rope. It doesn’t require everyone. An individual contribution won't make a difference – one person less and the rock still moves. Collective thinkers believe greater things can be achieved by working together in larger groups. So they utilize fit people to work and everyone gets adequate amount of water. They appoint a centralized authority to audit the work and distribute the water. Individual thinkers on the hand, believe no one should tell them what to do. They think only those who contribute should have access to water and others can buy water from them. They don’t believe a centralized authority can think in their best interest. They also think a powerful authority that controls the entire water could quickly become abusive. The fact is, the Individual Good cannot be untangled from the Collective Good. Governments re-allocate resources against people's self-interest in pursuit of big goals like roads, dams, defense or the regulation of environmental issues. While the extremes – pure capitalism on one end of the spectrum and pure socialism on the other – can be very seductive because they are so pure, but reality rejects this purity. The result is we are always (imperfectly) balancing the Individual and the Collective good.
2.2.3.10. Human reasoning is not based on facts, it is based on stories. You can’t convince people about political and moral issues by giving facts. There are two types of problems. Tame problems and wicked problems. Tame problems are easy to solve once they are understood. If someone is drowning you take them out of the water and problem is solved. Everybody can agree on this. On the other hand, wicked problems like poverty or climate change are easy to understand but far too complex to fix. They usually have many unclear factors and external dependencies with higher priorities. Moreover, the solutions are usually supported by the political and moral differences. Or urgency vs importance. Common beliefs and morals (subjective reality) binds people together. Liberals and conservatives can’t think out of their zones. The very nature of morality binds us into groups. Intelligence and sophistication really shines when members cooperate. People come together and do big things. While it binds them it also blinds them. They can’t think for themselves and they become a partisan. Liberals and conservatives are bound around different sacred values and principles, and they absolutely cannot understand each other lest they are kicked out of their tribes.
2.2.3.11. Liberals speak for the weak and oppressed, want comfort, change and justice, even at risk of chaos and anarchy. Their lives seem to be more less orderly. Liberals prefer dogs that are independent and friendly to everyone. Liberals care less about purity (e.g. an original food or cocktail recipe, or sexually). Conservatives speak for institutions and traditions; want order even at the cost of those at the bottom. Conservatives prefer dogs that are loyal to its owner and protective. Conservatives are more likely to think the world would be a better place if we let unsuccessful people fail and suffer the consequences. They also think life would have very little meaning if we never had to suffer.
2.2.4. PAX AMERICANA
2.2.4.1. Between 1880 and 2020, for 140 years, the USA had the largest economy in the world. They had the throne for the highest Gross Domestic Production. It was bigger than the entire Europe combined, by a long shot. Making other great nations incomparable to their size and power. After the World War 2, western countries found NATO in 1949. The Cold War was coming. The USA did not want another superpower to dominate the world and decided to stop Russia's and China's ideological growth and economic strength. So America made agreements to help the NATO countries and convinced to protect them for all possible threats. This way they established military basements and improved their relations internationally. They were everywhere. They became the policeman of the world and the west benefited from it for decades. And so did America, by selling their products and services, and improving their data intelligence network around the world. Historically, the economic leader of the world has always influenced the way of thinking of the human race. The music, language, education, fashion, norms, culture etc. Especially if they managed to setup military bases overseas. USA established that too. This was called Pax Americana, which means the American Peace.
2.2.4.2. Many people liked Obama because he was charismatic and funny. He helped the people and he prioritized making the citizens happy. He focused on liberal ideas and supported the minorities. He wanted to distribute the wealth and empower the those were left behind. During Obama's presidency we have seen the rise of feminism, campaigns against racism and improvements in gay rights around the world. He improved the public services including the healthcare. However, all these things came at a cost. Victory was defeating the US. The USA had the lowest GDP growth in history. They also had the biggest increase in debt to GDP ratio ever. All their debt was used to police the world, slow down climate change and making Americans happy. But their debt was not for growing the economy. High taxes on American businesses forced them to flee to some other countries. Apple, Alphabet and many other countries are now headquartered in Ireland, Netherlands and other places. Once the there was world peace the NATO lost its importance gradually. Most countries stopped paying their share for the military upkeep and USA was covering the costs almost solely. The USA leadership was diminishing. In the meantime, China closed the GDP gap and became the largest economy in the world for the first time in 140 years. They have been heavily investing in Africa and Central Asia. Now they harvest what they sowed. China took the throne and a new era has now begun. The Dominante Sina, or Chinese Dominance. Trump wanted to do the exact opposite of Obama, and prioritize the economy so he ignored the citizens. He ignored charisma and leadership. He said 'America first' and decreased the military spending to shut down the "redundant" Pax Americana policy. He introduced tax cuts on American businesses to increase national production and employment. He started Trade Wars with China to hurt their economy. Until COVID-19, America's unemployment rates dropped sharply, economy was healing rapidly. Salaries were increasing, investments were incoming and the stock market was booming.
2.3. BUSINESS
2.3.1. A successful business is essentially 4 things: A) Getting a product/service that people really want and need. B) Finding the people that want to buy that product/service. C) Making those people know that you have that product/service. D) Delivering Or in other words; Product design, market research, marketing and operations.
2.3.1.1. A) CUSTOMER FOCUSED PRODUCT DESIGN
2.3.1.1.1. IDEATION
2.3.1.1.2. PROTOTYPING & VALIDATION
2.3.1.2. B) MARKET RESEARCH
2.3.1.2.1. COMPETITION
2.3.1.3. C) MARKETING
2.3.1.3.1. GENERAL NOTES
2.3.1.3.2. AUDIENCE (YOUR CUSTOMER)
2.3.1.3.3. STORY & BRAND BUILDING
2.3.1.3.4. YOUR MESSAGE
2.3.1.4. D) PRODUCTION & OPERATION
2.3.1.4.1. FUNDRAISING & ACCOUNTING
2.3.1.4.2. NEGOTIATION & COMMUNICATION
2.3.1.4.3. OPERATING
2.3.1.4.4. IDEALOGY