The Billionaire’s Brain, & Jennifer Lopez’s voice
He starts this out saying that if you get this one wrong, you won’t get anything else right…I guess I hadn’t realized how true that is before. This step, as I saw it, was primarily about awareness.
The first principle in this step is from Charlie Munger’s quote – to get what you want, you have to deserve what you want – the world isn’t a crazy enough place yet to reward a bunch of undeserving people. I see now more than I ever have that as I look around, not just at myself but at everyone & anyone, people have what they deserve, not what happened to them. The world is unhappy, because we all want the things we don’t deserve…at least not yet. Parents, kids, successful people, unsuccessful people, students, employees, spouses, skinny people, fat people, pretty much everyone, except maybe people who have illnesses caused by something out of their control…the principle is that whatever it is you want, you have to deserve it. I don’t have what I have wanted or thought I wanted, because I have not done what it takes to deserve it. I’m not even sure WHAT I want in many cases, and I deserve that as well.
In looking at what makes a person worth a damn, he sums in up in one word: AWARENESS. The principle is that it takes awareness to be worth a damn. Being aware…of the environment, of the words that come out of my mouth, of the buttons on my keyboard. Another principle here is that the world is made up of people who watch things happen, people who make things happen, & people who wonder what happened. I hadn’t realized that when you’re wondering about life, you’re wondering about every little thing…you don’t know, you don’t have any awareness, and the pondering doesn’t develop awareness. I guess somehow I though it might come if I pondered enough. I think it’s a BIG principle that when you ponder, you never SOLVE. Also a principle that the world is made up of intangible things, that it takes awareness to see. This step is the first step, he notes, because it’s FOUNDATIONAL. Warren Buffet said in a speech that if you took a classroom of kids, and you could choose any one kid to receive 10% of what they’ll end up earning in their lifetime, to choose the kid who observes what the other kids don’t. The kid who is most aware. The kid who can look outside of where the other kids look. It seems like that would be the kid who can actually THINK.
Would I have bet on myself? No, I don’t think even as a kid looking around my own classroom…even then I felt ‘left behind’.. a disappointment. Even then I was living day to day, not really looking ahead or planning. Even then a beach ball in the waves, just waiting to see what thing popped up in front of me next. He mentions that the Journal of Human Intelligence found in a study that the kids who make observations that nobody else notices are the best indicators of their potential. The kids who are more AWARE. The principle is that AWARENESS is the quickest path to increasing seeing the intangibles, increasing what we deserve, increasing the ‘worth a damn’ factor. Wow. The story he tells here about when he was walking on Joel Salatin’s farm really hit home to me…it’s a picture of how I have essentially done everything. He & Joel were walking quickly through the farm, but Tai had just read a book about the merits of noticing things in nature or something like that, so he’s walking along noting blades of grass and trees and birds…in doing that, which he thought was useful work & implementing what he read, he completely misses that the gate for the cows is open. As I’m relating to this, he read something and then made a note to remember it and then went about forcefully observing every tiny bit of nature and self-righteously thinking how great it was to be implementing this wisdom… until the whole purpose of him working there on the farm went out the window because while he’s admiring a blade of grass the cows could all get loose and be gone. He thought he was focusing on the ‘big picture’, doing the ‘right thing’, -WONDERING. PONDERING. Thinking there’s merit in that. Joel Salatin points out that the time to stop and smell the roses isn’t NOW, although there is a time for that as well… I think it’s a principle that part of being aware is knowing when it’s time to see the bigger picture and when it’s time to notice and smell the roses. While he was (my own interpretation) forcing himself to have awareness about nit-picky individual things, he was missing all of the key things to be aware of for the greater purpose. Ugh-I really saw myself in that story, as one of the ones that ‘wonders what happened’. A good principle here is that the first thing to focus on is a massive awareness of life. That this is the most important ‘intangible’ of life, awareness. He talks about Helen Keller, and her level of awareness, with no senses except for touch. With only touch she had an amazing awareness of life.
There’s another principle here in that If we want to succeed, we have to focus on NOW. And also one that there will be a time to sit and ponder, but you can’t live a life where we look at a keyboard every day without knowing what every button means. I do see that most people complain about ‘external’ things, meaning things outside of ourselves. We don’t see the intangibles. It’s a great principle that the world is fair – if you don’t give much to it, it won’t give you much back. Also a principle that we have to be on an upward path, to consistently deserve more and more and more. I also see as a principle that when we do the things that work, our deserving factor increases. Looking at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, regardless of whatever we don’t like about them, it’s impossible to not see the value they brought to the world….there are very few people in the world who haven’t come in contact if not daily use of something they created or something that came from something they created. Looking at how the whole world wept when Nelson Mandela died, looking at Mother Teresa, the work they did made them deserving of the worldwide respect they had. They earned it. There’s a principle in that the world is much more fair than we have learned…People usually get what they deserve. It’s an interesting point that we look at ‘externals’ to blame when we don’t have what we want… If I’m not getting what I want, instead of looking at the economy, health limitations, past traumas that are limiting, what someone did to me or took from me, at the end of the day, the principle is that as much as we deserve is exactly what we’re going to get. So clearly there’s something I don’t see…an intangible, and the place to look for it is only with myself.
I like this part, where he advises to play a bigger part in the world. It seems like having that directive, to play a bigger part in the world, would cause a person to stop wallowing in self-concern and instead turn their attention out to the world, and to DOING rather than sitting and pondering about what to do. And to developing more skills….more of the intangibles, like perseverance, patience, wisdom, focus, awareness….the principle here is to get what you want, start with deserving it, which starts with AWARENESS. I see deserving as doing the RIGHT work, which means doing what it actually takes to accomplish that thing,or what it actually takes to grow… not doing things we ‘book learn’ and then look at for a day or two until we forget them. (Ugh.)
It’s a great principle that you can always deserve more than you have now. And another great one that when we become AWARE, we’re not blaming externals, or life….we’re more focused, and then each day we can go to bed a little wiser, step by step, in small spurts.
I’ve been looking at different successful people…one is Keanu Reeves…he worked really hard since he was a kid, at theater, which he had a passion for. Unbeknownst to me he had MANY epic fails…horrible reviews about bad performances, lots of criticism, tragic deaths of people close to him, and he didn’t sink into self concern and ‘poor me’ and blaming external factors…he took it in stride and kept plugging away…never seemed to feel ‘wronged’, or ‘how dare they’ indignation…he didn’t feel like he deserved the big success, didn’t assume he’d done all the work and should have what he wanted. He mentions Aristotle’s quote about how anger is easy, but being angry with the right intensity for the right reasons is difficult, meaning there’s a definite balance there. But it starts with AWARENESS. He gives a great example of how to succeed in Hollywood… it’s not just a talent you have, or a skill you develop, but also finding and meeting the right people and the right opportunities, and learning who those key people are, looking at the full picture, all of which takes awareness…. they definitely never show that part of it. It’s a principle that whenever you would bet on yourself for success in any area, that’s how you know you’re on the right track. To invert this, who WOULDN’T I bet on? Primarily a ‘low-awareness’ person… a person who doesn’t know that they don’t know, such as how I have been with health. What makes a person unsuccessful? Usually it starts with a lack of awareness…I think that is a principle…lack of success starts with lack of awareness. But the example of Sam Walton is a good example of how to develop it….he made himself AWARE of what other store models were, how other people were selling, how other displays were set up, AWARE of what he didn’t know. That was definitely action-based, as opposed to sitting and pondering. I see that I need to emulate that kind of action, actual DOING of things to build awareness, as I have definitely wasted a boatload of time pondering, to no solutions.
Thank you,
Jodie