Strengths and Weaknesses part 3. Weaknesses

Weaknesses are the opposite of strengths on a mental level. They are not necessarily things you are bad at. You may be good, but your weaknesses are mental. You don't expect something or get satisfaction from doing it. After doing it, you feel tired and indifferent, and you don't look forward to doing it with pleasure, but try to avoid it. You can try to improve your weaknesses, but they are also your repetitive thought patterns, so you have to reprogram your brain and it's hard. One of my weaknesses is meeting half-acquaintances. I try to avoid them until the end. I'd rather walk away from another person than go towards them. The mere thought of this event makes me anxious. Dealing with weaknesses is challenging. There are ways to avoid and reduce their role. The first five that come to mind are:

1. Do not do it

2. Develop yourself in it

3. Partner up with someone

4. Develop a support system

5. Change your weakness into strength

As I already mentioned, I use the first method to avoid encounters with half-acquaintances. I spend more time avoiding them than I would spend on the encounters themselves. This is not reasonable, but I have to admit that I don't always act rationally. I try to strive for it, but weaknesses are often unconscious behaviors. You can't avoid all things. Then develop your weakness. This requires greater mental effort. That's why investing time in this doesn't make sense if you don't have to. This wastes resources from your more useful activities.

You often need other people to overcome a weakness. There are many people in your close circle whose strengths are your weaknesses. At workplaces, it is worth investing in forming such partnerships. You can help those close to you with your strengths if they are their weaknesses. Developing a support system takes time. You can use tools to develop the system. Automate your actions if you lack the desire for something. If you want to save money regularly, set up a continuous direct account transfer for saving. Sometimes you may have a weakness that you can hide with your strengths. You can get rid of the tension by imagining that you are somewhere else. A stand up comedian can create a sketch character by exaggerating his weaknesses. He thinks about the role on stage, imagining that he is just acting.

If you cannot avoid or work around your weaknesses, you must improve them to tolerable levels. You can't let them ruin your whole life. Get over yourself and improve them. Your journey may be painful, but your weaknesses may produce the greatest waste in life. You can achieve great results with smaller effort. The advantages and disadvantages of strengths and weaknesses vary from person to person. You have to work things out yourself. Remember that by changing a few critical things, you can achieve big results, whether they are about strengths or weaknesses.

Strengths and Weaknesses part 2 Strengths

 Your strengths are combinations of your knowledge, skills and talents. You need them all to bring out the best in you. Of these three, the most important part and the one that clearly sets you apart from the rest is talent, i.e. repetitive thinking patterns. They are your unique talents. You are different because the impulses of your brain are brought in different ways. Acquiring knowledge and skills are essential, but they can also be acquired by others. It is impossible to copy your personal filter. You are different from others, so find your own strengths. They have common features.

I use four different parts in the book. The last three are more or less psychic similarities and success tells about how well the strengths come out:

1. Success

2. Instinct

3. Growth

4. Need

Success is the most obvious feature. Success tells you that you have some ability. There is still a long way to go from ability to strength. I can drop anything and catch any item myself before it hits the ground better than most people. It is difficult for me to refine this ability into a strength. If you know how I can do this, please tell me. The mere ability to do something and succeed in it is not enough if certain psychological criteria are not met.


Utilizing strengths based on instinct is more common than conscious action. This says a lot about the uniqueness of the strengths. You act strongly on your instincts. It is a condition of your existence. Instincts make you volunteer for things you're good at.


Growth means the ability to learn things very quickly and to refine one's ability to do things quickly. Abilities are things that seem easy to you. They do not require your special concentration but feel natural. You can lose track of time during them. This means the so-called flow state. In this case, you will be happy and you will accomplish a lot without realizing it. Growth takes place by utilizing strengths.


A need means how you feel a moment after an action. You are e.g. satisfied, happy and you feel that you have reached a peaceful state of being. Strive for the same state over and over again. You feel mentally strong even though you are physically exhausted. Your need to do something was stronger as a child. Then, you mostly try to do things that feel good. As an adult, you will have many mental obstacles that reduce the need. Strengths are the things you do that make you feel strong, and your weaknesses are the things that make you feel weak. You can be good at something, but still feel mentally drained. This is a sign of your weakness. Use your strengths because they work with less effort. Utilizing them gives you an edge over those who don't.

Strengths and weaknesses part 1. Knowledge, skill, and talent

 You have strengths and weaknesses. Their meaning for you is personal. You might focus on doing things through your strengths, while others focus on improving their weaknesses. For some reason, most of us believe that developing our weaknesses is more important than our strengths. You can get the performance of a Skoda by successfully tuning your truck, but you should focus on tuning your Ferrari. The latter is a wiser option, because in today's world, you cannot do without your strengths.

Knowledge, skill and talent


You can learn the first two. Talents are natural abilities that you cannot learn. You can refine them. Your talents refer to your natural and repetitive thinking patterns and cannot be taught. A talented accountant has e.g. the noble skill of being , i.e. he wants to get all the numbers right. Due to different levels of talent, students starting from the same starting point produce different results. The top level can only be reached if the talent coincides with what one does. This does not mean that learning is not useful for the gifted. Of the strengths, talent forms the essential parts. Knowledge and skills can be acquired, but unique thinking patterns cannot be acquired.


Knowledge means things you are aware of. You can gather information yourself and it can be taught to you. Information can be divided into two parts: facts and information based on experience. You have read the facts and your knowledge based on experiences are the things you have learned along the way. Facts can and should be taught. Knowledge based on experiences is learned by thinking about what was done and how the action has affected either you or others or by following the actions of others. A skill is how you do something. The best way to learn a skill is to break it down into pieces and put them together. The best way to learn is to practice by doing it consciously. Each skill and its parts should be learned in the right way at the right time in the right order.



Talent can be divided into three different categories. Motivational talent explains why you do something. It tells you the reason why you do what you do. Thinking talent tells you how you think, i.e. how you consider options or how you draw conclusions. The unifying talent tells you who you trust, who you work with and who you reject. Talent is made up of the connections in the brain that control its activity. Thinking patterns are different from others because all brains have billions of connections that work in different ways. They are different for everyone. Connections are mostly formed during the first three years of life, and by sixteen years, half of your connections are dead. Connections form mental networks that filter the information the brain receives. The network decides how to react to certain situations.


If you don't know about your talents, find them by following your natural reactions. They are reactions you cannot learn. They are at their best in stressful situations. In addition to natural reactions, you can think about things that you constantly miss. In addition, you can think about things that give you satisfaction and things you learn quickly. The things you were interested in as a child are probably the ones you are talented at. You have felt an attraction to them even at an older age. You'll learn faster the skills you're good at. Embracing them comes more naturally to you than to others. Satisfaction is also a sign of your talent, because those things have the strongest connections in your brain. Think about the things that make you happiest. It is one of the best tips for finding talent.


Anders Ericsson made a study that proved that talent alone is not enough for success. The end result was that getting to the top requires an average of 10,000 hours of focused and purposeful training. The average does not tell about individuals. In reality, the number of hours varied from a few thousand to twenty thousand. The need for hours depends largely on talent. When the number of hours in question is so large, it is clear that without talent, few people can cope with that amount of work. Since the amount of talent tells about repeated thought patterns, such an amount of hours is almost impossible to perform without talent. The interest in doing something ends quickly without the satisfaction of doing it, which is one of the hallmarks of talent.

Changing habits

 You can begin to make changes to your habits when you understand their anatomy and how you create new habits. Your old habits are automated in your brain, so changing them is harder than creating new ones. You have to understand how habits are formed in order to change them. Your habits never leave your brain, so changing them is your only chance. Changing habits requires four steps:

1. Identify the routine

2. Try different rewards

3. Isolate the clue

4. Make a plan for execution

Identifying the routine is the easiest part because it is a habit that needs changing, such as biting nails, eating sweets or shopping. Trying out rewards takes more work. The real reward may not be immediately noticed. The reward can only last for milliseconds, like a momentary change in hormone balance. Finding the right reward is the most important thing, because without it, the habit is not born. Sensations produced by the different rewards must be observed. You can either use the person following your routine or alternatively write down first feelings after receiving each award. This process can take longer, so don't be discouraged if you don't see the prize right away. The longer you wait after trying the reward, the more likely you are to make a mistake. Make a plan where you mark the prizes you tested and how you make your observations.

Once you find the right reward, you can start isolating the clue. They have similarities. They can be linked to a place, a company, a mental/physical state, the time of the clock or a previous activity. The clue is likely a combination of factors. The best way to isolate a clue is to write down all the events and conditions day after day. Let's use the example of buying sugary treats after a working day.

• Physical clue (store or kiosk logo)

• Location (proximity to your grocery store or kiosk on your commute)

• Company (alone or with significant other / children)

• Condition (hunger, fatigue after work)

• Time (17.05 weekdays)
  
  

What to do beforehand (Travelling in a full and noisy means of transportation) Repeat marking the clues until you notice similarities. Note that these five things are not always the same. Clues can also be about single factors. After completing the first three parts, you can begin to change the habit. Understand that not all habits change easily. Reprogramming your brain is difficult. It can take a long time. You need to make a plan for change that you will implement for a long time. Since you implement your habit as follows: you notice the cue, you perform the routine to get the desired reward, for example, when buying treats, your plan must be:

• When I am tired after a day of working and jump a bus full of people and can see a store logo (clue)

• I Walk in and buy a product x instead of a product y (altered routine) to get a reward z

In this case, a product x is something delicious and unhealthy, while the substitute y is, for example, a banana. The received reward is the feeling from the right level of blood sugar. Repeat the aforementioned plan until you have automated it. It will take some time. The more often you have repeated the habit you want to change, the more repetitions it will need to achieve the change.

Improving chances of success

Change your habits one at a time. That way you have the best chance of success. Be patient because changes take time. The first days after the decision are easier because you are at your most determined. According to American professors who study habits, the worst moments come about three weeks after starting. When you start, modify your environment in such a way that it favors change and keeps temptations away. You can't just put treats in the cupboard at home and rely on willpower or buy them at the store and trust that you won't start eating them. Throw the temptations in the trash or donate to better homes. Don't give yourself easy opportunities to fail. Changing your environment is the single most important thing. Without it, the chances of success decrease. Later, the role of your environment will decrease.

The longer you try to change a habit, the more likely you are to fail at first attempt. Be prepared for momentary failures by thinking in advance how you will react to them. The first one doesn't mean you've killed your chance for change. Failures make you human. According to US researchers, it takes an average of seven attempts to quit smoking. Be kind to yourself when you fail and decide in advance that you will try again immediately after the trip. Make a plan for the trip as well.

Each habit is different and their formation has not yet been studied much. A study conducted at the University of London in 2009 has reached some conclusions. The study measured habit formation to the point where 95% automation was achieved. In other words, at that point the habit required no effort. The study measured changes in students' exercise habits and diets. In the study, the average result was 66 days, with the results varying between 18 and 254 days.

Habits and creating new ones

On average, about forty percent of the things you do are habits. It is impossible to determine the exact number to any individual because it would require a constant monitoring of brain activity. Most of the habits you just perform. Some of them are helpful and some harmful. Their sum can be anything. My personal experience is that changing even one bad habit can have a big positive impact. Why modification and not elimination? For the simple reason that habits are almost impossible to remove, as we will see later. Different habits have similarities and being aware of them can be beneficial. Noticing the similarities will improve chances of changing the worst habits and developing new ones.

The definition of a habit is roughly: it means a choice made in the past that you continue to make without thinking about it. Habits are formed by tasks that take place in your brain. Your brain is constantly conserving energy. The longer you perform tasks, the less the brain needs to consume. Habits can be called processes where the brain turns a series of tasks into routines. There are hundreds of task sets every day. Habits are either simple or complex. They form because your brain is constantly working to conserve energy. They reduce wasted energy and make it easier to focus on more difficult things. This means that habits don't go away, they are in our brains to stay. They can be changed by reprogramming brains. They need to be understood in order to change them.

During habits, there are two clear spikes in energy consumption in the brain. They are spotting a clue and getting a reward. Routines consume less energy the more often and longer you perform them. Clues can be anything, such as a certain time or a place. Also, visual clues such as candy shelves can trigger routines. Routines can be simple actions like nail biting or complex like analyzing investments. Their duration can be anything from milliseconds to many hours or even days. Rewards range from feel-good feelings such as pride to physical changes or hormone production. The size of the reward produces a constant desire and need to do the routine. The main reason for forming a habit is the reward. Understanding the anatomy of habits makes it possible to create new habits and change old ones.

Creating new habits

There are three parts to creating new habits:

1. Coming up with a clear clue

2. Defining a routine

3. Definition of an award
   
   
   

All parts above are required to create a habit. The more complicated the routine is, the more precisely it must be defined, including clues and rewards. If you want to learn how to perform a new habit in the morning, you should bring the instrument with which you want to perform the habit visible on your bedside table or another place as a clue. You can bring a toothbrush if you want to learn to brush your teeth in the morning as well. If you want to start going for a morning run, bring your sneakers to bedroom door or some other visible place where you can see them when you rise up from the bed before going to sleep. The reward can be any thing that makes you feel good. It can be the good feeling you get from sports or the old great jeans that don't fit you anymore. The main thing is that the award makes you feel good. A big enough reward is the only chance to create a new habit successfully. The cue must create a desire for the reward that you get from the routine, i.e. it must be related to the routine and the reward in one way or another.

Creating new habits is much easier than changing the current ones. Next text is about the latter.

-TT

Focus on producing the most value to you

Think about whether you can be good enough at something to be in the top ten percent. The answer is yes. It is not easy. There is no simple answer to getting there. The most effective ten percent wouldn't exist if it were easy. The process leading to it is not simple, even if there is a simple answer to the question. Top performers have the greatest efficiency. Peak efficiency means you can make more money doing less hours. This happens by doing the right things. These people generate the most added value for you and others. You can't be good at everything. You have to make wise choices.

It is better for you to be excellent at a few things than to be mediocre at many things. You should also know some things more than others. It is better than knowing as much about many things as others. Focus on core areas of expertise. Keep improving them. You're never done. Others will pass you by if you stay where you are. Nowadays, we are talking about ten thousand hours of focused training if you want to be a top performer. I agree to some extent. I believe there are shortcuts that reduce the number of hours. I also believe that ten thousand hours are not enough without talent. It can even mean double the number of hours. This may not be enough without talent if the competition is tough.

I don't think that constant training is enough to get to the top of the world if you don't have passion for what you do. Focus on your passions because they bring you the most joy and benefit. It's easier for you to enjoy the merry-go-round of good things through your passions. There are exceptions. One of them was Andre Agassi, whose father forced him to practice tennis so much that he hated it. I recommend Agassi's biography to you, where he goes through all the emotional scales that top artists experience during their lifetime.

Choose for whom and with whom you work

Work for a company or client that returns a large part of the added value you produce. In addition, work with people who can increase the value of your work with their contribution. These things rise above the rest when you focus on increasing the relative benefit of your work. Focus on getting a sufficient part of the added value you produce for yourself. You have a better chance of doing this by working for yourself. Make sure that your employer or client pays primarily for the results. As an entrepreneur, don't attract too many customers. Focus on a small number of big customers. Make sure that your customers are ready to sign long contracts and focus primarily on the most important things. According to the principle of less is more, the income from a few customers is greater than from others. Never bet on just one customer.

As an employee, you must be in a workplace where people who add value are rewarded. Then you can get paid according to your results. Work in a place where you have a lot of power over your work. Only then can you focus on the work from which you and your employer will reap the greatest benefits. Choose the freedom to do your job as you see fit. If you lack freedom and have to rely on others to figure out what you can do or how to do things, you won't be able to work as efficiently as possible. Focus primarily on results, not your workload, and work in a place where getting results is the single most important thing.

Who you work with is important. Free riders or difficult people will affect your results. There are huge differences in people's work performance. The top 1% who are capable of peak performance achieve much more than the least efficient 1%. Top performers make great results even compared to mediocrity. They get more done than you think. You can learn from them and get closer to their performance by working with them. For example, in team sports, you perform better when you play with better players. When you play with the worse ones, you also become worse. Although a team is only as strong as its weakest links, they also get better when they play with better ones.

Studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of top workers. One involved thousands of employees, from mail carriers to partners in large law firms. The support was provided by John Hunter from Michigan State University and Frank Schmidt and Michael Judiesch from the University of Iowa. It compared top performers with the least efficient percent and average workers. The study found that the value of top performers increases with the increasing demands of work.

• In simple jobs, such as the professions of machine operators and office rats, those belonging to the best percent achieved three times more than the worst.

• In moderately difficult tasks, such as retail sales and mechanics, the best were twelve times more efficient than the worst percent.

• The most demanding professions, such as insurance agents, sales negotiators, doctors and lawyers, were studied by comparing the most efficient percentage with average performers. On average, the best accomplish more than two average workers.

• Those who belong to the best percent of programmers achieve the work input of almost thirteen mediocre people.
  
  
  

As you can see from the figures above, at least one study proves the claim that the most efficient employees are by far the biggest producers of net worth. Cherish their hard work. Make sure that they are paid well. Don't whine about pay equality. In practice, top performers must reap the most benefits of their effectiveness themselves. You're not a top performer if you can't find evidence of your top performance. In this case, get into their sphere of influence.

Aim to find top performers as an entrepreneur. Their results far exceed their costs. Pay them a lot because they are wanted. You can also try to look for people who have the potential to become top performers. You can get even more benefit from them compared to your costs. Top performers have their own thought patterns and have often come up with other, better ways of doing things. Don't immediately reject a person who behaves or thinks strangely about you.

Productivity vs Efficiency

Your productivity increases when you do things better than before. Your efficiency increases as you reach your goal faster. The difference between productivity and efficiency can be seen in the fact that in efficiency thinking you wonder if you need to do something at all. Increasing efficiency means selective laziness. By focusing on it, you decide whether you are doing things that are useful for you or whether you are doing mandatory things only to reach their minimum effective dose.

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People can be roughly divided into four different groups in terms of work ethic and intelligence. Stupid and lazy is not useful. Still, remember that intelligence comes in many forms and you can get more out of stupid and lazy in the right task. Hardworking and stupid is the most dangerous combination. They cause damage by focusing on the wrong things. They can be workaholics without achieving any benefits. Stupid and diligent people can cause damage, because the mistakes they produce are impossible to correct. Doing pointless and useless things well does not make them important, and spending a lot of time on pointless things does not add value.

Hardworking and lazy are the best people. They probably maximize what they do better than others because they do not want to do unnecessary work. Hardworking and smart is a relatively good combination because they rarely make big mistakes or do a lot of useless tasks. People in this group can learn to be lazy because they have enough capacity to learn to be more efficient. Maximizing efficiency is done by focusing on the things that produce the greatest benefits. Strive to maximize efficiency, especially at work. Think before you act. Even hard-working and lazy people don't always understand the most important things. Often this is due to emotions. However, don't overthink because your instincts are often right and overthinking causes indecision, creating inefficiency.

Work, relative vs the absolute benefit

Hello and happy new year to everyone! 

In the next few months I will put some more material to this blog. It is mostly the material before in Finnish.

It is all about the ratio of effort put to the work and the benefit obtained from it. The benefit is most commonly measured in money. Consider other things, such as meaningfulness. It is difficult to measure because it is individual. In most cases, you will reap the greatest benefit by employing yourself. When working for others, most of your time is spent producing the greatest benefit for some intermediary or to the owners. You have to produce more than your employer pays in wages and side costs of employment. If this is not the case, you must at least convince your employer of your contribution.

A small number of employees produce the greatest benefit. Make yourself invaluable if you want to keep your job in an uncertain economic situation. It might be hard for you to understand it. It could result in losing your job. Employers can also choose the wrong employees to leave. Don't be lulled into your own irreplaceability. Your excellence may be a concept that others do not recognize.

One way to improve the relative benefit is to reduce the time spent on work through working remotely. It improves your relative income through two mechanisms. The first is the reduction of time spent commuting. The second is an opportunity to increase efficiency. The longer the commute takes and the more it costs, the more the relative income rises. Travel expenses often don't matter much because you can deduct them on taxes. Employers rarely compensate for the time you lose commuting, so reducing it is an essential part of the benefits of remote work.

Increasing remote work is a good opportunity for knowledge workers. They can often do their work without arriving at the workplace. Some employers take advantage of this opportunity. Remote work is often a matter of negotiation. Getting an agreement from an employer may require a trial period. Use it effectively, because employers may not believe in its benefits. Practice doing remote work many times before the test time so that you can produce good results. Also, remember to tell your boss that he can end the probationary period at any time if he wants to. Make sure that you can minimize reasons for your boss to refuse a probationary period.

Don't leave room for failure, because you may have to wait a long time for the second test period. You are in a better negotiating position well after the results, when you start discussing the continuation of remote work. Carry out your remote work without interruption. Manage the necessary things efficiently. Your employer must benefit from remote work more than your normal job.

The benefits of remote work in terms of productivity are best seen as the opportunity to focus on the most important tasks without interruptions. They can produce a mandatory refocusing in tasks that require precision, which can last as long as 45 minutes. This is due to the reprogramming of your brain, which does not happen immediately. The duration depends on the difficulty and differences of the tasks and the quality of the interruption. Find a place where there will be no interruptions. For the majority, working at home is not the best idea.

Focus on the most important tasks when working remotely. According to some studies, unnecessary interruptions can take up to a quarter of the working day. Eliminating interruptions can cut up to two hours from your work day. Find yourself a place where there will be no interruptions. This is not a home for most people because there are self-inflicted distractions.

Another mechanism that improves the efficiency of remote work is the ability to choose one's work tasks, doing them at the best possible time. You can eliminate unnecessary work when you decide for yourself. You can more easily avoid pointless meetings when working remotely. When you work remotely, you don't have to focus on less useful tasks that others offer when you're at your most efficient. This is especially true for those who take orders from others.

The third mechanism is that you can choose how and where you do your work. Many workplaces have established ways that have been used for ages, even though they are ineffective. Not all working methods are suitable for everyone. In remote work, you get to choose your own way of working. It doesn't matter where you do your work. You too have your own place where your work goes best. Try many places and draw your own conclusions.

The biggest disadvantage of telecommuting can be greater responsibility. It might not be right for you. Working remotely requires more from yourself. Not everyone is able to take responsibility for their work for long periods of time. In addition, telecommuting can reduce the influence of external factors, which is beneficial in creative fields. On the other hand, the free time increased by remote work improves the opportunities to seek them elsewhere.

For an entrepreneur, the relative benefit is a different matter, because he pays the same amount of his profits in proportion as the profits increase. The entrepreneur also has to take into account the cost of the employees. Everyone should generate more income than they consume the company's resources. In Finland, the amount of money is about twice the salary. The threshold for hiring is higher than in many other countries.

Although the majority of employees should produce added value compared to their costs, this is not the case. A small number of employees produce the greatest added value. Make sure your employer knows the added value you bring. Don't expect fame and glory. Make sure others see your value. As an entrepreneur, you have to think about whether the customers bring more income than what they waste your resources. According to the principle of less is more, a small number of customers generate the biggest profits and losses. This also applies to individual products and services. For example, Apple's iPhones generate more than half of the turnover and an even larger part of the profits.

Cycles for Investors / Sijoittajan Syklit

My  book Cycles for Investors will be published in about a year for free at investorscycles.blogspot.com

Kirjani "Sijoittajan Syklit" julkaistaan seuraavan vuoden aikana ilmaiseksi osoitteessa sijoittajansyklit.blogspot.com

-Tommi T

New book, Cycles for Investor published in Amazon

My new English book Cycles for Investors is published in Amazon. You can also purchase it in Finnish. It does not promise you superior investment returns, magic formulas to achieve them or help you make exact forecasts about the markets. Instead, it gives you tools to increase your odds to avoid greatest insanity in the markets like buying during bubbles on margin, or selling close to the markets bottoms. It helps you to better understand intermediate and long term cycles related to the financial markets.

About the content of the book

The main parts of the content are the deeper anatomy of the cycles, the cycles related to the national economies, the cycles related to the financial markets and the life cycles of companies. It also addresses the intersection of three important economic cycles and the real estate and commodity cycles. The deeper anatomy of the cycles deals with their psychological profile as well as the factors that shape extremes. National economic cycles include e.g. the cycle of economic development and the cycle of a leading economic country. Financial market cycles include e.g. long debt cycles and stock market cycles. Life cycles related to companies include e.g. technology adoption cycle and industry life cycle. Real estate and commodity cycles have been treated only superficially due to the author’s lack of understanding.

In addition, it explains how an investor can identify the conditions of booms and bubbles prior to collapses. Efforts have been made to present cycles by multiplying their course by cause-and-effect relationships, mostly without numbers. More important than numbers is to understand the course of the cycles and the factors that interact to drive the cycles consistently. The book has focused at least on medium cycles. In perceiving them, numbers can be more misleading if cause-and-effect relationships or the course of cycles are not properly understood.

In today’s world, everything affects everything, so the cycles in the book are more or less related. In particular, the cycles of the national economies and the financial markets are often highly interdependent. Business cycles are also dependent on national economies and financial markets. The latter do not decide the fate of individual companies. It can be said that some companies are not affected.

The book deals with the anatomy of cycles and the following cycles and life cycles:

• Long psychological / socioeconomic cycle

• Economic development cycle

• Leading economy cycle

• Reserve currency cycle

• Long and short debt cycles

• Stock market cycles

• Technology life cycle

• Industry life cycle

• Business life cycle

• Real estate cycle

The main purpose of the book is to improve the reader’s chances of increasing investment returns by better understanding the cycles related to economics and investments. Improving revenue is most likely to happen by reducing the number of stupid decisions made by readers than by providing magical insights. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have often mentioned that they are not particularly wise, but avoid stupidity better than others. This makes sense for the sake of mathematical facts alone. As most people know, a 50% decrease requires a 100% increase, and so on.

The focus is on the extremes and extremes of the cycles, i.e. mainly bubbles, peaks, bottoms, possible crashes, beginnings, and endings. Other parts are less important. One reason for emphasizing the extremes is that, in my view, many long-term cycles are at or near the end or just past them. The ends and the beginnings refer to those cycles without peaks and bottoms. This is the case, for example, with a long psychological / socio-economic cycle. Extremes are also the moments when the biggest differences are made in investment returns.

In my experience, the book’s publishing platform doesn’t produce clear graphs, so I’ve left them out. I have reduced the time and effort of the reader by keeping the book short. The book is supposed to follow the principle: “the price is what you pay and the value is what you get” In my experience, the number of pages does not match the benefits of non-fiction books.

The book is not for novice investors. It does not explain everything in detail. The reader needs to know what the basic concepts like P / E ratio, Return on Equity and Earnings Per Share mean. A broader understanding of the economy is desirable but not essential. An open mind is also important because the book calls into question many things that at least economists consider true. Independent thinking is also essential. No book offers absolute truth about the economy because it cannot be found. The world is too complex for today’s computing power. This book does not offer it either, as the author knows his limitations.

The book contains a few investment ideas. If they are found, they are vague in the style of "substances used for intoxication can be a good investment in Awakening." (An explanation of the former can be found later.) The book does not contain exact predictions of what is to come, but it gives a broad explanation of what may happen or what is the most likely option for the future. It does not predict when anything will happen.

Learning from the best + Blood, Sweat and Tears

The best in their fields are rarely products of the system for everybody. They mostly go through their own paths. No system can develop an individual better than taking personal needs into account in the best possible way. Often they want to share their path with others or someone else wants to know the secret to their success. With this, you can get better too. This can happen in many different ways. Learn from the opportunity if you get one. Today, the easiest option is to take advantage of videos, interviews, or books.

If you want to get to the top then you can’t gather advice from mediocre people. Not even good individuals can help you with that. Focus only on the information provided by top individuals. Absolute best is often difficult to measure. It can be considered a matter of taste. A good gauge e.g. the arts have sales volumes and sums of money from individual works. Don’t copy one hit wonders but the ones that have been at the top for a long time. Without long-term success, it can only be about happiness. Explore talent from many different fields. Often, many things unite many things. The clearest examples are a passion for an object of interest and following one’s own path. In addition to them, there are many other commonalities, but they are the most important.

It is easy for you to follow the development paths of the champions in your field today. You can find a lot of their interviews on the internet. They have shared their life through biographies as well. Autobiographies are the best options. Two of the best I have read are ”Open” from Andre Agassi and ”On Writing” by Stephen King On Writing. They tell about how their thoughts on their lives and professions have been thrown from one emotional state to another. The failures that are necessary for everyone are best highlighted in autobiographies. They are widely available from libraries or at low prices online.

Blood, sweat and tears

Staying put is not your problem if you are happy with your situation and are able to arrange it so that you do not have any problems. Today, this is not easy. Escape from your comfort zone often enough if you want to move forward. This may not require extra work from you but new ways of doing things. Without resistance, there will be no development. It occurs in many forms and can be divided into external and internal resistance. Development often happens by hitting your head on the wall over and over again until you succeed.

Your ego is your biggest problem when you stay put. Going to areas of discomfort is your biggest hurdle. It makes you believe you don’t need a change. You are often the victim of your habits. Routines wire your brain without you noticing. You’ll have a hard time getting up if you’ve been staying on your couch for a long time. You need to transcend yourself and endure a certain amount of pain in order to develop into excellence. Top athletes have to put everything and a little extra into the game. Few are willing to go far enough. However, development requires crossing your borders in one way or another. It requires a head-on struggle. It is not a question of quantity but of power. Increasing the amount of exercise above a certain point does not help because the limits of development come into play.

Your battle inside your head can also be due to pressure from your environment and friends. It can also be called external pressure, but you decide how you feel about it. The most important way to reduce external pressure is to find out the reasons for the opposition. If your changes don’t suit everyone then reduce their company. External pressures can also become unknown. For some, this pressure is easier to deal with, but it is unique. You need to understand that you cannot live up to the expectations of others if you want to get the most out of your life. In the world of pioneers, the resistance is tougher because no one has done the same things before. By pioneers I mean e.g. top scientists and record-breaking athletes.

Understand that development is not just an uphill but it includes downhills and long journeys on a flat. Many times running towards the wall often makes the mind quit as well. Sometimes you should go around the wall or try a completely different route. Failure in one battle does not mean losing the war. Setbacks are necessary because without them you may never try in the most sensible way. They can hurt, but still don’t give up. That is the surest way to fail. You can prepare for setbacks mentally, physically, and financially. The masters and pioneers in their field have always been a little crazy and have suffered from it.

The lives of the mediocre people can be much easier and recommended for many. The crazy often do more and going to the frontiers of nonsense can produce disasters. However, don’t underestimate them because they are moving the world forward. You learn well from failures, so don’t be afraid of them. They will be for everyone. How you react to them will determine your future success.

Everybody has intelligence

Not all people are endowed with the same intellectual gifts. You may not be aware of your strengths but focus on things you don’t benefit from. Utilizing ingenuity is easier than ever. You can make yourself more easily known to the public, e.g. Via Youtube. This means e.g. an easier and more lucrative path for the best musicians and other performers. The flip side of the coin is the increase in the number of competitors. The following sections are intended to explain to you how strength ranges or intelligences can be broken down. The division makes them easier to understand. Intelligence can be divided in many different ways. In the book, I use seven different types of intelligence from Harward Professor Howard Gardner. They give a clear picture of people’s intelligence. You can be smart in many ways. Different intelligences are not mutually exclusive. Gardner's intelligences are:

• Logical-mathematical

• Linguistic

• Musical

• Bodily-kinesthetic

• Spatial

• Interpersonal

• Intrapersonal

Logically-mathematically intelligent people analyze problems logically, know how to use math, and study things scientifically. Such intelligence is most favored at the expense of others. Unfortunately, many of the gifted in this area are put to solve problems for which they do not have enough intelligence.

Linguistic intelligence describes the ability to understand and produce both spoken and written language fluently. Learning foreign languages is also easier. Lawyers, speakers, writers, and poets are linguistically average. Such genius is emphasized in education in Finland. The Finnish way of teaching foreign languages ​​through grammar may not be right, because the most important thing abroad, i.e. speaking a foreign language, is forgotten.

Musical intelligence means being able to perform music either by playing or singing and understanding how well someone else practices their musicality. Gardner believes this is the most questionable area of intelligence because he says musicality is close to linguistic genius.

Physically intelligent people have the ability to use a body or part of it to solve problems. Physically gifted are certain top athletes, such as gymnasts. Good builders, surgeons, and mechanics are also physically gifted.

Spatially intelligent refers to the ability to detect and manipulate large or smaller spaces. The rulers of large spaces are e.g. pilots and air traffic controllers. Rulers of smaller forms can be found e.g. sculptors, chess players and architects.

Intrapersonally intelligent people are able to understand the intentions, motivations, desires of others and are good at working with other people. The best examples are good salesmen, teachers, nurses, politicians and Actors. Their role in society is often underestimated, even though you are helpless without social skills. My personal opinion of Finns is that we are not socially talented. This may be due in part to teaching us to believe in it.

Interpersonally intelligent people feel good about themselves are able to understand themselves, create the behaviors that are best for them, understand their desires, fears and abilities. They take advantage of the above to regulate their lives for the best they see fit. I consider this skill to be the most important.

Defining the seven intelligences is not the only right way. More important than considering the accuracy of the classification is to evaluate how different forms of intelligence describe you. If you are a complete failure in some intelligence then you should learn how to improve it. It doesn’t become your strength even with hard training. It will make your life a lot easier as your biggest problems will diminish. Only the things you are really talented can get the most out of with the least amount of input. Of course, the smart ones have to practice. Becoming good requires less practice from them. Invest in things where you are the smartest. You get the most out of them. No one is intelligent in everything. Do not strive for the best in all things. It reduces your overall benefits and you do unnecessary work. It makes sense to move from a full-length to a mediocre one, because then you get great benefits with less investment.

You should always invest in self-knowledge. Without understanding oneself, one does not know one’s areas of strength and punches one’s head in the wall unnecessarily. Examples of this are singers aspiring to compete in Idols, who sound like they are scratching a metal surface with a screwdriver. When one of the judges tells the truth then it is left unbelievable and barked by the professionals. Self-knowledge also helps when you are praised in vain by loved ones. Unnecessary praise can cause great harm. Don’t neglect to develop this skill. You can take it for granted, but it’s not for everyone.

Simplicity also requires prioritization

Simplicity also requires prioritization. You have your passions and order of priorities. The most important things are often overshadowed, because your time is often determined by external factors. Focus on prioritizing the tasks you are left with after elimination. You can’t do many jobs efficiently at the same time, so you’re forced to prioritize. For most, even one job is too much. Remember, prioritization is your responsibility because others don’t know you better. Don't follow the herd. You live in a world of choices. Choosing the right things will improve your chances of getting the most out of yourself. Think about priorities. Things to prioritize have common denominators, although they vary by personality. Think carefully about your priorities. Some are self-explanatory and others are surprising.

Think of yourself first. The most important tasks are the ones that take you forward and that you’ve always wanted to do or try. Figure out things that produce results and more joy. They are based on the less is more principle or those with great potential. Also, things that require your creativity or are considered impossible by others will rank high. The only way to do some things is to prioritize tasks with high value. Prioritize them at the expense of your routine. Eliminating vanities is more important than prioritizing because they have a greater impact on quality of life. Start prioritizing step by step. You will probably fail in everything if you try to do too many things at once. Don’t forget that loneliness can be a virtue. Don’t forget it, even if the desire to change all things right now is great.

The most important task

Don’t forget that even the most important tasks have their order. Outline the most important thing for each day and prioritize it. Always put it first. Determine it through maximum benefit. Also assign a purpose to the task, because without good reason, the task is not the most important one. If you can't get the most important task done in one day, divide it into parts. Prioritize smaller parts. Set aside your most efficient hours for the most important task. They vary depending on the personality. Most are most effective 2-4 hours after waking up. They have had time to shed their sleep and their worst fatigue has subsided. You will find your best working hours best by testing, i.e. doing the most important tasks at different times.

In addition to reserving the most efficient working time, minimize potential disruption to the most important tasks. Close email notifications, set the phone to silent, and focus on the most important task. This may be easier said than done. Still, try to minimize interference. This will greatly increase your efficiency. Set a deadline for the most important task. If you book a longer time period for your most important tasks than a day, set aside moments on your calendar for your most important tasks. I do not recommend a vague definition of the most important tasks, such as “I will graduate as an engineer next year”. In this case, the priorities may be unclear and leave too much room for interpretation.

When you define the most important tasks, you must first determine the next physical task and what you want to accomplish. The relevance of the next physical task is to make the most important task easier to do. Example: You have a toothache that interferes with your daily life. In this case, your most important task is to make an appointment and go to the dentist. The first physical task is to look up a dentist's number. In reality, the first physical task is probably to open a browser or computer. Mark the desired result as a hole patch and end of the toothache. Apply this mindset to every major task. Simplify the thing you want to do. Often the most important task is multifaceted. Therefore, clearly define the desired outcome. Determine the desired result before the first physical step.

Simplicity requires elimination

 Simplicity requires elimination. Your amount of stuff, your human contact, and the things you do will increase faster than you reduce them. Elimination of vanities is the most important thing in simplifying life. The figures for individual goods and human contacts are described in more detail in the figures. This chapter tells you more about unnecessary doing. Most of the things you do are useless. They do not add value to you. Your skills are poor on average. The purpose of the book is to reduce the things you do in vain and make you focus on what brings you the most benefit and enjoyment. Just a few things you do every day are really helpful to you. You’ll have a hard time believing this because it means you’re wasting most of your available resources. You don’t have to try to get the few percent productivity gains that the world around you thirsts for. By eliminating vanities, you get an improved quality of life and tens of percent efficiency.

You need to make things unnecessary if you can’t eliminate them. Habits don’t need your focus. More about creating routines, their benefits, and changing them is covered in a chapter that focuses on habits. Unnecessary things depend on the person. Therefore, this chapter focuses more on identifying vanities. You can also eliminate your vanities by delegating them to others. First, try to remove unnecessary things you don’t like. You cannot eliminate all of them. First, remove all possible ones and delegate those vanities to others that you cannot completely avoid. Then focus on the things you are bad at. They produce unpleasant side effects on your life and waste your resources. Failures will produce more failures for you and a rolling snowball will grow. Here are some things to keep in mind that is taken from The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris:

• Things to always suspend. When you are interrupted, you have to re-tune in to do them which takes time out of your brain.

• Answering unnecessary emails and calls.

• Things that have always been done this way. They have not evolved and as a result they have become ineffective.

• Things where your partner is either miserable or unreliable.

• Things that are not completed on schedule and whose completion is not visible.

• Meetings that don’t have a clear purpose, goal, or schedule and where you don’t have a critical role.
  
  

From the list above, you can easily see how much more unnecessary and wasteful things you have to do. You can easily simplify your life by eliminating them. This leads to a better outcome than improving unnecessary things. Elimination can produce unexpected surprises for you. Try it to see the results. Do not bite too large a piece at a time. Focus first on your most harmful habits and actions. Subtract a maximum of two similar things at once. Start with the most harmful and gradually move on to others. In my experience, changing all bad habits at once leads to everyone’s failure and bigger problems than you had before the change.

Simplicity part 1 Simplicity and Complexity

Simple is beautiful and it shows in many things. The modern world is moving towards complex structures. This trend is wrong. Keeping a product simple as it enters the market makes it easier to make more money. Simple products have started to attract more and more recently. Ease of use has risen to a major role in purchasing decisions. The imperceptibility of the role of simplicity is often due to the fact that it is not as intellectually interesting as complexity. The problem with Finnish engineering is that a technically superior solution is not always the best if it is complex. This was one reason why Nokia could not compete with Apple.

Simple is always beautiful. The exception may be someone with an ugly and simple soul. Not hanging on to exceptions. Focus on the beauty of simplicity. The beauty of simplicity is one reason less is more of a principle to work. Simplifying aspects of human life can be helpful. Automatic Monthly Savings in Index Funds can save you large amounts of work exams and bank brokerage fees. Simple, simple and straightforward. Your job is to make complex things simple. This is an ongoing process. It never ends the first time. Don't compromise on it. Always keep in mind that a simple product, thing, message or service is high quality. If you are unable to simplify then strive for elimination. If this does not work, remember the lowest possible minimum dose and make sure that you do not consume more of your resources than necessary.

Life is constantly becoming more complicated. That doesn't have to be the case. Focus only on the things that bring the most benefit and enjoyment to you and your environment. Eliminate every thing unrelated to the above if you can. Unnecessary and important things will always fight for their living space in your headroom. This war is difficult to detect because unnecessary as well as important things fought inside your head. By giving up things that do you little or no harm, you can simplify your life with pleasure and great results. Awesome and excellent things often mean simple results. Reducing complexity leads to a more beautiful end result. If you want to make something big going forward, you need the courage to simplify. Few have the resources to do so. That is why simplicity is so rare and beautiful.

Simplification requires both the elimination and the prioritization of unnecessary issues. These are never fully understood. It is still worth continuing this process at regular intervals. The time interval is up to you. There is no exact rule of thumb. Aim for it at least a couple of times a year. The beauty of simplicity is not easily noticed without experimentation. Take action now and see how your quality of life improves.

Complexity is the scourge of today. Simplification is the best weapon against complexity. This is easier said than done, but it is all the more valuable. Complexity causes greater inefficiency. Remember that simplicity alone is not always effective or interesting. Repeating the same thing from day to day starts to taste like wood before long. Keeping things as simple as possible is the best option. You can also think of it through the MED I mentioned in the second chapter. The purpose of this chapter is to find out how things are simplified and how complexity creates problems.

The world is complex. It is becoming more and more complex. The more complex things become, the more inefficient they go after a certain point. The problems caused by the phenomenon are often not perceived when they are hidden. They are difficult to analyze. Instead of improving things, one should think about whether they work at all, instead of thinking about how they could be improved. This also applies to business in addition to individuals. The increase in complexity can be compared to a snowball descending a slope and growing from protective snow. Costs are accelerating as complexity increases. The growth of the rolling ball accelerates until it stops at an obstacle and disintegrates. The best way to fight is to break up the snowball into smaller pieces and destroy the unnecessary ones before they go downhill. This is not always possible in time and simplification is becoming more difficult.

The more complex the system, the more it needs to be dealt with. A simpler system works better. A simple system works better without supervision. In business, simplification reduces the need for expensive managers and additional costs. Simplicity helps focus on relevant things, such as adding value. Large size does not always mean complexity and cannot be reduced by minimizing size. Rather, it is easier to grow simpler products profitably. Let's even compare Nokia and Apple. Nokia offered many different phone models to its customers. Apple, on the other hand, did not have many different models. Apple also managed to simplify the user experience that facilitated sales. The simpler the product, the easier it was to use. This maximizes the added value experienced by the user, which made it easier to charge a higher price for the product.

Be the loser of your own life

 We only have one life. We are responsible for that ourselves. Adulthood is a milestone, but some individuals need guardianship for longer. More important than this moment is creating rules of the game that you can follow when you decide for yourself. Laws impose their own restrictions on the rules. Despite these, we have the opportunity to create the living conditions we want, especially in Western countries such as Finland. The world is not always a fair place. We can lose even if we create our own rules of the game, as permitted by the restrictions of the law. Today, we cannot blame our society today for our failures, even if it steers individuals in the most favorable direction for the system. The system is often wrong. It does not take into account our individual needs. Then you have a responsibility to take care of your life as well as you can.

Creating your own rules of the game requires critical thinking. Not everyone's rules of the game are the same. The difference is good because the world would be a boring place for everyone to do the same things in life. Today, our most prestigious life paths are the following: elementary school, high school, college studies, and transitioning from an employee to a large and well-known employer. This is followed by a family, a mortgage, working until retirement age paying taxes and a slow movement towards the inevitable goal. This is a slightly exaggerated and deliberately painted negative outlook for the future, as it is intended to evoke the idea that this is not an inevitable outcome. By creating our own rules of the game, we can have a better chance of enjoying our lives more as an individual and not just as part of the overall machinery. The world is full of opportunities and we should exploit them to improve our quality of life.

There can be hundreds of rules of the game and each situation has its own. Instead of detailed rules of the game, we need to create rules of the game that focus on the big picture. In these texts, we’ll go through how we can create rules of the game for important areas of our lives, such as time, relationships, health, and money. We can reduce our burden in every area with clear rules. We can use Less is more concept. It can be exploited in the rules of the game to improve our quality of life. We can play a different game than 95% of people by creating our rules. Most work like others. It is possible to be a pioneer, but it will not work for many. Shortcuts exist and we can use them. This requires us to walk our own paths. It can feel like you are alone and a loser’s path for a long time.

We must define our own success. Being at work 24/7 and making large sums of money can be a loser´s path if it leads to a collapse in personal life, such as divorce and bitter offspring. Even making small sums of money can be a success. This is not the path most choose. Choosing a path for the general public is not a bad thing if it is a path you really want to follow. These texts are not for this path but for creating your own rules of the game and enforcing them. If things go down the drain, you should leave them unchanged. What is not broken should not be repaired. There is no point in making a small improvement because the input-output ratio is not growing enough.

It makes sense to follow different rules when things don’t go the way you want. We all have our strengths and weaknesses in some jobs. We often do not use them enough to our advantage. By utilizing them, we not only improve our own quality of life, but also benefit our environment. There are many solutions to the problems. The most commonly used are not always the best but almost always imitated by mediocrity. Utilizing them, the results are mediocre at best. This may mean more work, but utilizing your own thinking will yield better results than utilizing generally accepted paths.

Asking the right questions in critical thinking

 The right questions are the most important source of critical thinking. Doing them and/or doing them in the right order is more important than getting the right answers to the wrong questions. Let's take one example of such a pair of questions:

• How can I do this more effectively?

• Does this need to be done at all?
  
  

We don’t have to ask the first question at all if the answer to the second question is no. If the answer to the second question is yes, we should also ask ourselves the first question. The right questions will radically reduce our waste. We only get great answers with great questions. We need to set aside time to ask great questions because their benefits can be invaluable. By getting the right answers to the wrong questions, we are creating an opportunity for a great catastrophe for ourselves. In the long run, a chain reaction could result in a major disaster after asking the wrong questions.

Most of the questions we ask are wrong. They lead to wrong conclusions. The question is almost always more important than the answer. For example, when we do science, we ask questions for which we have no prior knowledge of the answers. Surprising breakthroughs can result. The benefits of the right questions then become irreplaceable. The right questions simplify things. To get the right answers, we need to keep our questions simple because our brain capacity is limited. Here are a couple of question pairs where the first question is wrong and the second is correct:

• Why do I spend so much effort on this client?

• Do I need this customer at all?

• Why do politicians have to raise taxes all the time?

• How can I pay less taxes?
  
  
  

Asking the right questions is difficult, but they bring great benefits. In less is more philosophy, one question transcends all others:

What are some of the critical things we can do to make all of these things either easier or unnecessary?

We need to go through the anatomy of this question carefully:

Point 1. What are some of the critical things we can do. The most important word in this paragraph is can. This is a possible action. We can’t put a word in a conditional form, as we could, we would, we should do. Doing always wins the intention.

Step 2. To make them by doing. This point means doing the purposeful thing. That doesn’t mean we do things for the sake of doing it. Finding purposefulness requires in-depth thinking, because by doing one thing, other things are not done.

Point 3. other things become either easier or unnecessary. This means that our critical issues yield such great benefits that it becomes easier to reach our goals as other things become easier or unnecessary. Most of us don’t realize how much we cannot do to achieve something significant.

Asking the right questions saves time for the most important things and tasks. I hope you find this text useful.

-TT

Critical thinking

The importance of critical thinking increases as the amount of information increases. The result is a difficulty in thinking critically. We should not directly think of the text of any book as such. Instead, we need to think about how well the text is true. We work on instinct most of the time. It works well most of the time. We need to think more about important things. The role of critical thinking is emphasized. There are many obstacles in its way and their impact can go beyond making sensible decisions. Critical thinking means examining things and our careful reflection on their various aspects. This requires us to ask the right questions. Critical thinking is a competitive advantage today. Many current university degrees do little to encourage this. What, why, how, etc. are questions we should be asking all the time to think critically.

The increase in modern day´s stress, workload, and amount of information affects our ability to think critically. Improving critical thinking includes prioritizing, maximizing the utilization of our working memory, and informational flexibility. We have a lot to consider. Resolving priorities makes it easier for us to focus on the essentials. When there is too many things to consider, things are handled at half capacity and the outputs are decreased. We constantly have to increase the use of our working memory and we need to focus better despite the disruptions. Informative flexibility means that we are able to change our patterns of behavior according to the situation and the facts.

Critical thinking has changed recently and its demands on us have grown. Ways to get information have changed. That’s why it’s good to think about how our environment affects us. Today, the pursuit of propaganda and self-interest by influencing the information fed to others is constantly increasing. Anyone can publish their own opinions and their own facts. Our criticism of the source must be intensified. We need to think more about the publisher’s intentions. Google doesn’t always bring out the facts. Our life situations change faster and adapting to a new situation may require a new reflection on the facts, displacing the old facts. Finding out the essentials requires more of our thinking. The exploitation of our critical thinking suffers from many obstacles. They can cause errors in our rational thinking that lead to wrong conclusions

One of our most common mistakes is our natural way of focusing on sources that support our own views rather than trying to think things from different perspectives. Blaming others for our own mistakes and focusing on the mistakes of others instead of looking in mirror. The other mistake is our belief in authority which means that we do not question the facts of someone because we consider him or her infallible. This can apply to our family members, bosses, and politicians. Our pride can also be an obstacle to critical thinking because we find it hard to admit that we don’t know all the facts. Following a herd can also lead to distorted thinking.

We can develop our critical thinking and our brain capacity. There are many ways. Some of them seem self-evident. By questioning our assumptions and examining the information from many perspectives, we get to think more critically. However, we cannot examine too many perspectives, because this can paralyze our thinking into too many perspectives.

We can interpret things differently. We should not just hang out in one way that suits us. We need to learn to think differently. One way is to do things between them out of the ordinary. This helps us to outline different perspectives. We must always think that we are also wrong. We should also ask ourselves “what do we not know?” Self-development and honesty in our skills also help improve our thinking.

Let’s set aside time for critical thinking so we can respond to an ever-faster world. Even the wisest of us are sometimes wrong. The better we accept this fact, the better our critical thinking develops. It will become increasingly important in the future. While critical thinking may seem like an increasing burden to us, it becomes a habit of avoiding unnecessary deeds and thinking of unnecessary things. As a result, we will have more time in the future.

Critical thinking helps when you have to separate the useful facts, actions, opinions, behaviors from the less useful ones and the waste from brilliance . In other words, less is more thinking requires critical thinking.

-TT

Less Is More Thinking is non-linear

Less is more thinking is non-linear. It means that using small investments in it brings great benefits. It increases the time used for thinking, but it creates benefits for our lives. It is important for us to be able to think about things that are important and interesting to us. People are individuals. We cannot do everything as others do, producing fun and benefits for both ourselves and our environment. The core idea is that only a small portion of our efforts yield us most of our benefits. Ratios vary by subject. The number can be 80/20 or even 99/1. 20% of the products can generate 80% of the company's sales. An even number is just a number. Actual ratios can be as high as 50/1 or 97/20. The latter could mean that 20% of authors sell 97% of books in the United States. Radical fluctuations are due to the non-linearities of life and the world. This is important in social outcomes.

The difference is very large, which means that by exploiting the great effects, we can maximize the power of small things. We should start by thinking about the small core issues, those that produce the greatest benefits in relation to their size. After that, we can reduce our workload by focusing only on core issues, or we can try to keep our workload the same by increasing their share, thus increasing our benefits. We must not just focus on them. It is equally important to get rid of harmful things from our lives. The less is more principle also works in terms of negative effects. A small part of our lives produce the biggest negative effects. Eliminating them is difficult. We need to pay close attention to those efforts.

Focusing on core issues and eliminating unnecessary things requires constant thinking. We can’t avoid it if we want to get more out of our lives. Detecting them requires independent action and the use of your own thinking. On average, we are wrong all the time, even in important things. This is done by following the herd. It is sometimes right, but not nearly always. Cause-effect relationships are key. Often the consequences are considered to be the causes, even if they are not. For example, when one muscle is sore, the pain may radiate to another that is treated without failure. Pain is usually corrected with an analgesic that takes away the pain but does not eliminate the problem. The most important thing to think about is to find the main cause that will be put in order and through it we will get great benefit with less effort. We do not have to solve all our problems at once, but we can think of those that will bring the greatest benefits.

This way of thinking is much different from how we often see things as linear, that is, one by one. A small portion of actions will always be of the greatest value to us and others. We need to think about which action produces the most value. It is not found in mediocrity but under a deeper layer. We need to think new and get under the surface. The surface is our way of thinking linearly and traveling with the herd. Focusing on the same insignificances as the others, we create the same outcomes. To quote Mark Twain, “When you find yourself doing or thinking like the majority, it’s time to stop and think again.” For us, the best way to get to the highest value is to create a mindset where we often reject the opinions of the majority. They include dominant states of mind, consensus thinking, traditional wisdom, and easy answers. These obscure the reality from us, that is, the things that bring the greatest benefits. Giving up mediocre wisdom brings great benefits, but it is difficult. Changing our thinking is the hardest thing for us because it is hard for us to admit to ourselves that we are wrong.