A Puzzle or a Mystery?

Malcom Gladwell's What the Dog Saw is the source for this post, although anything by him can be equally inspiring. Malcom asserts there is a difference between a puzzle and a mystery. And what a difference that makes to the Active Investor!

I love Sudokus, especially when trying to relax. They are classic puzzles. As you work with them, more knowledge is developed which leads to the solution. That's how all puzzles work. You keep developing more information until the solution emerges. A mystery is the opposite. You may have all the information up front. You're unable to solve it because of the way you are looking at it. More data only further obscures the answer because there is now more being incorrectly viewed. A mystery is only solved by finding the correct way to look at the existing situation.

Our western educational systems present the world as a big puzzle and they offer the promise that if we just get enough education we would be able to solve our  problems with the data we would now be smart enough to collect. There is no doubt to the value of an education; however, it's not this simple. Life is a mystery not a puzzle.

Sherlock Holmes solved mysteries. It wasn't only that he collected more data (which he did). In the Sherlock Holmes stories, he connected all his observations to solve the mystery. These connections catch most readers by surprise because we are still collecting more data in our minds when Sherlock has been eliminating dead ends and arriving at the unseen answer. Perhaps the single Sherlock quote that best sums up all of these time-honored tales is his comment to Watson, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

In a mystery, we quickly get to a point where more data only causes more confusion.  A solution only begins to evolve when we disregard our training to collect more information and begin to realize the problem is that we are looking at it the wrong way. When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

Business is also not a puzzle and more analysis often leads to more frustration. Like life, business is a mystery. The successful business owner or professional doesn't need more information than the competition. The successful Active Investor needs insight. The key to the information age isn't more information. It's developing better ways to connect what we may already know.

As an example, we still hear of business people viewing sales and marketing as a numbers games. There is goal setting that encourages mindless activities repeating a minimum number of daily "fishing" activities. The idea is that if any number of data points get high enough, success will be forced to happen. Success can never be forced. Look at what's already going on. Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be your truth. That is, the truth of what you are about, where you need to take your enterprise. Actively invest in those things. Success evolves from those activities that are working and that you believe in.

How can you determine if you are seeing a possible solution to your mystery? One clue is if the resulting activities are in harmony with the Active Investor blog theme: growth follows activities that are repetitive, powerful, and gentle. If they are, you may have your insight.

Developing business insight is the mystery. There is no puzzle.

image credit: Egan Snow

Related articles by Zemanta

• What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell | Book review (guardian.co.uk)
• This much I know: Malcolm Gladwell (guardian.co.uk)

A Disease of Choice

Image via Wikipedia

If we focus enough on the potential of contracting a certain disease, we will increase our chances of actually getting it to the point where we are actually sick. What if that were a good thing?

House M.D. is a television show about an obnoxious doctor who ingeniously cures patients with exotic conditions in spite of his offensive manners. In one episode his staff was impressed with the positive attitude of one of their patients, who in spite of having a condition they couldn't cure was always kind and caring. This was a personal challenge to House who begins his relationship with the patient by trying to make the patient react badly. That never happens and a frustrated House suddenly considers the possibility that maybe this patient isn't upbeat and positive in spite of his disease, maybe he's that way because of the disease. This insight leads to a diagnosis and cure. The episode ends with the cured patient still being kind and caring, which was something of an annoyance to the lead character.

We believe many of our short-comings may be the result of medical conditions. For example, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) makes it difficult (perhaps impossible) for sufferers to focus and therefore succeed in areas that require study. This is  serious condition that should be treated and not ignored.

Now if something exists, then it's possible that its opposite also exits. What would a life be like if we could also suffer from an opposite brain condition, Inattention Deficit Disorder, IDD? The symptoms would be an inability to be thoughtless and distracted which would require the sufferer to live a life of complete awareness. That would be a great disease! If we were obsessively worried about contracting it, we might actually get it! To obsessively worry, one would continually imagine what life would be like with a medical inability to suffer from your perceived short-comings.

Every personal investment has its elements of self-doubt and reservation. These can control and derail us from our purpose in life. What if we had a medical condition that made it impossible for this to happen to us? What if we had the insights, confidence, and courage we need because of a medical condition that just made us that way? If we have a purpose in life, isn't it reasonable to be able to contract it?

While suffering appears to be an unavoidable consequence of living, there is both productive and unproductive suffering. Why not choose the former?

Power Produces Fractal Growth

We can recognize those activities that create lasting values by their systematic characteristics of being repetitive, powerful, and gentle (RPG). This is characteristic of all of God's gifts to us from sunshine and rain to love and joy. These activities are the drivers that raise mountains, carve canyons, build successful organizations, and change societies. If we fill a lifetime with them, we fulfill our destiny and achieve peace.

Being powerful is the centerpiece. Exactly what does that mean? To start, the opposite of powerful is not weak, after all, the meek shall inherit the earth. No, the opposite of powerful is forceful.

Force creates change; but only as long as the forces are applied. Eventually they dissipate and the changes are lost. Force does not create lasting values. A deeper explanation of this can be found in Dr. David Hawkin's eye-opening book, Power vs Force.

Powerful activities are simple patterns that have universal application. They are those simple things each of us discover we can do well. Because of their universal applicability, the results of powerful activities build in a replicating, self-similar fashion. What begins to happen is fractal growth, represented by this week's illustration.

Fractals are the design of nature. Think about the shape of a cloud, a leaf, or a sea shell. They don't consist of circles, triangles, or polygons. Mathematicians have discovered these shapes are created when a simple function is endlessly repeated.

Our personal shapes are a good example. We are cellular. Our cells keep repeating (they are good at that) and our shape and capabilities form from that activity. We aren't assembled; we self-replicate and experience fractal growth.

A powerful set of activities is the heart of a good business plan. Is there something universally applicable incorporated into the business plan? Something that will work under alternative circumstances? Are those activities allowed to replicate and grow? If that's the plan, it's one to build lasting values.

Our personal schedules are no different. Am I repeating those powerful things to create success every day? What we are discussing here is both a financial strategy and a moral obligation.

This thinking then moves us to the importance of clear self-direction; and that is the secret of gentleness.

Image credit: SantaRosa OLD SKOOL

The Problem of Original Sin

It's easy to believe and act on the power of good intention and co-creation; yet history and personal experience painfully demonstrate that life just isn't that easy. There is a restraining force that thwarts the co-creative powers of positive intentions and its been present as long as history has been recorded.

We  find this force labeled "original sin" in Biblical doctrine. It's a favorite concept for those who wish to argue against Biblical teachings to attack; however, it does seem to explain what happens; so a second look at the mechanics of original sin is in order.

Cognitive scientists study the brain in an effort to understand the mind. Humans have this distinctive ability to be self-aware. We can observe and therefore can also encourage, love, criticize, or despise ourselves. It doesn't appear that other life forms can (or want) to do this. While all life has some form of intelligence, it just usually doesn't have the capability of self-awareness.

In the cognitive studies of the human brain, self-awareness appears to be in a special area of the human brain known as the prefrontal cortex. Unlike a mechanisms subject only to Newton's Laws, humans are not limited to a fixed reaction to an action. We use the prefrontal cortex and its capability of  self-awareness to change our response.

Wonderful as self-awareness might be, the thousands of operational details required to maintain human life would simply over-whelm it. Never fear, a subconscious mind rises elegantly and efficiently to meet the need.While the prefrontal cortex is a small part of our total brain, the rest is busy operating all our life functions in an automatic fashion with any conscious direction.

A small portion of this subconscious intelligence is instinct. Most of our automated behaviors are learned. Researchers believe this larger area of our brain takes-in all it experiences as truth from birth until about the age of 6. While this system gives each succeeding generation the opportunity to receive updated lessons in living, the subconscious dutifully records with reason or judgment, often misinterpreting childhood experiences and forming false and/or destructive beliefs. These beliefs primarily come from our parents, who received them from their parents, who received them from generations of parents going back in time until the beliefs associated with original sin were started.

Defining sin is important. It was originally a term used in archery to mean "missing the mark." Original sin is the programming we receive from our ancestry that through our subconscious mental automation causes us to miss the potential we all were given. This definition is not meant to take away the use of the word sin to refer to missing out on God's grace; rather it includes that and more.

Neurologically, 95% of the brain is dedicated to the subconscious. While the remaining 5% can choose to be different, this doesn't happen easily. Corrective beliefs, in the form of new habits, are needed to re-program the subconscious. Forming those habits take the repetitive, powerful, and gentle actions  this blog has discussed for Active Investors. Biblically, it is what the work of the Holy Spirit is all about for all of us.

Image Credit: petervanallen

Reptitive, Powerful, and Gentle - Intrinsic Motivation

We sense the motivation of a leader is a step above that of follower. Business owners, managers, and consultants have all wanted to capture some of whatever motivates the leader, The Active Investor, and spread it throughout the entire organization. In an 18 minute TED presentation Dan Pink sheds a bright light on the nature of that difference and what some organizations do about it. His message is that business ignores what science already knows about motivation.