#Be a hyperrealist
Accept and work with reality, it is both practical and beautiful. Understand that: Dreams + Reality + Determination = A successful life. Also understand the cause effect relationships that govern reality and have principles for using them to get what you want. Getting more out of life isn’t just a matter of working harder. It’s much more a matter of working effectively.
#Understand reality
An accurate understanding of reality is the essential foundation for any good outcome. People fight seeing what’s true when it’s not what they want it to be. That’s bad because it’s more important to understand and deal with the bad stuff, since the good stuff will take care of itself.
#Be radically open-minded and radically transparent
We have to discover what’s true for ourselves. No one is born knowing what is true. Radical open-mindedness is invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. Learning is the product of continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see the outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. The more open-minded you are the less you will deceive yourself, and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. You must be willing to do things in the unique ways you think are best — and reflect on the feedback that comes inevitably of being that way. Don’t let fear stand in your way of being radically open-minded.
#Look to nature to learn how reality works
Our ability to fly or send cellphone signals around the world came from understanding and applying the existing rules of reality — the physical laws or principles that governs the natural world. Even though mankind is very intelligent in relation to other species, compared to nature, we have the intelligence of moss growing on a rock. We are incapable of designing a mosquito or any of the other species. So let nature teach you how reality works. Don’t let your biases stand in the way of your objectivity. You need to be analytical rather than emotional. All machines eventually break down and have their parts recycled. That includes us. It makes us sad because we’ve become attached to our machines, but if you look at it from the higher level, it’s really beautiful to observe how the machine of evolution works. Perfection doesn’t exist — it’s a goal that fuels a never-ending process of adaptation.
#Evolution is the only thing that is permanent
Always keep in mind that nature optimizes for the whole, not for the individual. Don’t call anything good or bad based only on how it affects you. To do so is to presume that what the individual wants is more important than the good of the whole.
What is rewarded is what contributes to the evolution of the whole. Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe — it’s the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything.
Remember that energy can’t be destroyed — it can only be reconfigured. That’s what evolution is. While everything apparently dies or disappears, the truth is that it all just gets reconfigured in evolving forms.
The primary purpose of every living thing is to act as a vessel for the DNA that evolves life through time. Knowledge is a bit like DNA in that it’s passed from generation to generation and evolves.
#Evolving is life’s greatest reward
Evolving is life’s greatest accomplishment and its greatest reward. History has shown that all species will either go extinct or evolve into other species, but with our limited time window it’s hard for us to see. Mankind was simply the result of DNA evolving into a new form about two hundred thousand years ago.
#Adaptation through trial and error is invaluable
Natural selection’s trial-and-error process allows improvement without anyone understanding or guiding it. The same could be applied to how we learn. There are three kinds of learning that foster evolution:
- Memory based learning — Storing the information that comes in through ones conscious mind so we can recall it later.
- Subconscious learning — The knowledge we take away from our experiences that never enters they conscious mind.
- Nonthinking learning — Like the changes in DNA that encode a species’ adaptations. You don’t have control over this.
#Embrace tough love
In order to give people strength you often have to deny them what they “want”, because that will give them the opportunity to struggle so they can develop the strength to get what they want on their own.
#Be open with your weaknesses
If you can be open with your weaknesses it will make you freer and will help you deal with them better. Don’t be embarrassed about your problems, recognize that everyone has them. The quality of your life will depend on the choices you make at painful moments. Your ability to adapt and move quickly through the process of your personal evolution will determine your success and happiness. If you do this well you can change your psychological reaction to it so that what is painful can become something you crave. When encountering your weaknesses you have four choices:
- You can deny them (which is what most people do.)
- You can accept them and work at them in order to try and convert them into strengths (which might or might not work depending on your ability to change.)
- You can accept your weaknesses and find ways around them.
- Or, you can change what you are going after.
#Higher-level thinking
Spend time to look down on yourself and those around you from a higher level. Higher-level thinking gives you the ability to study and influence the cause-effect relationships at play in your life and use them to get the outcomes you want.
#Write down your decision-making criteria
It turns into a collection of recipes for decision making. It allows you to recognize your patterns. Systemize your decision making. The most important thing is that you develop your own principles and write them down.
#Be the designer-manager of your machine
The way you operate to achieve your goals is your machine. Most people remain stuck in the perspective of being a worker within the machine. It’s much more important that you are a good designer/manager of your life than a good worker in it. These are two different roles and it’s important that you recognize the difference. It gives you a better strategic perspective. Be objective about it.
#Own your outcomes
Whatever circumstances life brings you, you will be more likely to succeed and find happiness if you take responsibility for making your decisions well instead of complaining about things being beyond your control.
#The 5-step process to get what you want out of life
- Have clear goals.
- Identify and don’t tolerate the problems that stand in the way of your achieving those goals.
- Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root cause.
- Design plans that will get you around them.
- Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results.
First you have to pick what you’re going after — your goals. If you don’t have all the skills you need to succeed, so what? Don’t worry about it because it’s true for everyone. You just have to know when they are needed and where you can go to get them.
#Synthesize and shape well
The first three steps — setting goals, identifying problems, and diagnosing them — are synthesizing. That’s where you figure out where to go and what’s really going on. Designing solutions and making sure the designs are implemented are shaping.
#Get to understand your ego barrier
Keep in mind your defense mechanisms that make it hard for you to accept your mistakes and weaknesses. These functions of the brain reside in primitive parts of the brain, such as the amygdala. Because these areas of your brain are not accessible to your conscious awareness, it’s virtually impossible for you to understand what they want and how they control you. These areas make you defensive. Higher-level consciousness resides in your prefrontal cortex, also known as the neocortex. This is the most distinctively human feature of your brain. This is where you experience the conscious awareness of decision making.
#Get to understand your blind spots
You also have blind spots—areas where your way of thinking prevents you from seeing things accurately. You have a different range for seeing and understanding things. Remember that you see things your own way and you can’t, naturally, appreciate what you can’t see. When trying to figure things out, don’t spin around in your own head too long—take in all the wonderful thinking available to you. The ego barrier and the blind spot barrier are the fatal flaws that keeps you from living up to your potential.
#Practice radical open-mindedness
Radical open-mindedness is motivated by the genuine worry that you might not be seeing your choices optimally. It allows you to explore different points of view and possibilities without letting your ego or your blind spots getting in your way. It requires you to replace your attachment to always being right with the joy of learning what’s true. Radical open-mindedness allows you to escape from the control of your lower-level you and ensures your upper-level you sees and considers all the good choices and makes the best possible decisions.
#Recognize that you might not know the best possible path
Your ability to deal with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you know. You can’t make a great decision without swimming for a while in a state of “not knowing.” Remember that what exists within the area of “not knowing” is so much greater and more exciting that anything you currently do know. Coming up with the right questions and asking other smart people what they think is as important as having all the answers.
#Decision making is a two-step process
First you take in all the relevant information, then you decide. Don’t be reluctant to take in information that is inconsistent with what you have already concluded. Remember that taking in others’ perspectives in order to consider them in no way reduces your freedom to think independently and make your own decisions. It just broadens your perspective when you make them.
#Understand how you are wired
We are all different because of the different ways that the machine that is our brain works. Everyone is like a lego set of attributes, with each piece reflecting the workings of a different part of their brain. All these pieces come together to determine what each person is like, and if you know what a person is like, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what you can expect from them.