Guiding Principles

Lenses and Handrails

Lenses and Handrails

When you start life, the world seems to be an overwhelming, chaotic mix of information and knowledge. To me, at least, things didn’t ever seem to be as I expected.

I consider myself a bit of a slow learner and pretty dumb. I’m not trying to self deprecate, but that’s my internal view of myself. However, I find I usually get there, whatever my goal is, it just takes longer than most.

The benefit of being slower, is there is more effort in the comprehension. With that comes a lot of back tracing and analysis. Models, frameworks and deconstruction happen. The side effect of this is that I can explain things a lot better to others.

Good for you 😉

We all have different capacities, ways of seeing the world and adapting to our environments.

I’ve found some tools that really help me digest and process information and reality.

I refer to these as:

lenses and handrails

Imagine lenses as being a set of glasses that, once you put them on the whole world looks a lot clearer, sharper, less distorted. When things seem puzzling (blurry), putting on the lenses makes things make a lot of sense (clear).

Handrails are like a handrail as you walk up the stairs. If the lights are turned off you can just hold the hand rail, giving you confidence to progress in the dark. They have the amazing property of giving you confidence in new or unfamiliar situations as they give tried and tested results.

I do interchange the words handrails and Guiding Principles, but predominately use the word Guiding Principles.

I wanted to start off with the real world analogy related to human senses as it makes it easier to understand.

I will cover lenses in a separate article and for the rest of the article I will refer to handrails as Guiding Principles

Handrails (aka Guiding Principles)

I keep an up to date list of these Guiding Principles in my Google Drive.

Whenever I learn a new one and am confident in its success, I add it to the list.

I prioritize the list based off what is the most important for ensuring happiness and success.

OK lets dive in!

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Self is the source of all suffering

This statement is true and is rooted in many forms of Philosophy. I discovered it when studying Buddhism. It means that suffering arises from the illusion of a separate, permanent self - our attachment to ego, desires, and identity creates the pain we experience.

You stop suffering by letting go of attachment to the self. This is achieved through practices like mindfulness, meditation, and self-inquiry, which dissolve the illusion of ego and foster a deep acceptance of impermanence and interconnection.

Follow a strict routine to do the 20% that gets you 80%

The world is awash with distraction, government propaganda (news), social media, a billion YouTube videos showing you how you can make a million dollars a week pet grooming.

They are all competing for your attention and you will loose if you give it to them.

Make an audit of the things that you have done or are doing that are the 20% that yields the 80%.

Focus ONLY on them, double down.

Focus on the journey, not the destination

The idea of “being happy” once you “get/do/achieve x” is innate to human thinking but completely wrong.

Focus on the journey, the enjoyment of the journey. Solving and overcoming the adversities on the way, the people and interactions you have.

Once you have one house, two houses, 10 houses - when will you be happy? The answer is never - stick to enjoying the journey.

It’s not about what you want - it’s about what people want

I am most guilty for this. My brain always resorts to wanting to do things for me, not others.

Money and income comes from how much value you provide the world

Value isn’t really a thing it is actually Perceived Value

Everyone’s perceptions of what is valuable are different

When you make an exchange, money for a product, you perceive the cash to be less valuable than the product and the seller perceives the product as less valuable than the cash

Therefore to become rich you cannot focus on what you think is important, you can only focus on what others perceive as important

Throw away the ego, yourself, your wants. Focus on others. You are nothing

Choose your hard

Exercise is hard, obesity and heart disease is hard - choose your hard

Excelling at your job is hard, unemployment is hard - choose your hard

The relationship with your wife a hard, divorce is hard - choose your hard

Work on the business not in the business

I found this term from the book The E-Myth Revisited I would actually recommend this book to anyone who considers running a business.

The trap that many people fall into is focusing on doing the work and not building the business.

Don’t be indecisive with money - keep its velocity high

Cash that isn’t stored in an appreciating asset is dead and dying.

The velocity of money must be kept high by putting it to the best use with Asymmetric upside/downside.

Set action goals not result goals - Outcomes will be a side effect

Action goals are specific and call out the steps rather than the outcome.

You can control the steps you do, you can’t control the outcome.

Follow the pre-existing rules of the universe. It would be unreasonable for the Universe to change to fit you

Imagine being the worlds best Software Engineer, but you lived in a fishing village in Northern Africa in the 90s.

Will you become a Billionaire?

No

The same guy in California?

Probably

Expecting you to bend to your environment is reasonable

Expecting the world to change for you is unreasonable, is self centered and will cause resentment, anger and is selfish - which we know is the cause of all misery

Finish a start

When you start something - ALWAYS FINISH IT

Otherwise life will be a series of half assed, incomplete nothingness

What you focus on expands so assume good not bad - be an optimist

I was by default, from birth, what I called a Realist - preparing for the worst but hopefully a good scenario would emerge. This gave me the ability to handle set backs and celebrate any upside.

However there are benefits of being an active optimist - you will try things that you wouldn’t normally try, you may take long shots in the chance they work out and from Neville Goddard’s point of view, the assumption of reality - lies upon good things occurring following you assumed them. Or said another way - good things won’t happen to you if you don’t assume them to happen. A case against Pessimism for the open minded thinker.

Before you buy something - would you be willing to work X years to get it?

Shifting your thinking about purchasing big ticket items to, after tax, how many years would you need to work extra for this thing.

Soon snubs any romanticizing about material goods.

Work another 5 years in a gray office with people I hate for a larger box to live in?

I’m out -

🔗 Related Article - Before buying that next big thing

Compound daily activities

Don’t just compound your investments.

Focus on building something in your profession that can be used over and over again to increase the value you provide to the world.

If you are an employee, don’t let your employer have the only compounding assets, build your own.

Something once built that prints money or value forever.

🔗 Related Article - A Compounding Life

First principles thinking

When building or modifying something, always question the predicates / underpinnings / axioms that the current situation is built upon.

Asking why then why then why can uncover shaky foundations that the current decision is based upon.

In most cases you can remove that underpinning decision leaving you open to make a better outcome.

🔗 Related Article - First Principles Reasoning

Occam’s Razor

The simplest explanation, requiring the fewest assumptions, is usually the correct one.

This is closely related to First principles thinking

The simplest solution is the best solution. It always involves visiting the underpinning decisions

Network

Your network is your net worth

Languishing in your introverted safe space is stalling your progression

Get out, meet people, be human and enjoy it

Do the hard thing

This is the thing you most fear

This is the item on your todo list that if done, would relieve lots of mental burden and stress

This is the thing that would most likely move you forward the most

Do it as the first thing you do in the morning

See - It wasn’t that bad

Trust your gut

Your subconscious is very powerful and observant

Listen to it, encourage it

Make down time, quiet time - Reflection in the morning, vacations, coax it out, meditate, spend time in nature by yourself and listen for it

Then reward it by taking action

Don’t watch News, Media, Social Media

It is clear

News is Propaganda

Media is an Agenda

Social Media is a distraction and a PsyOp propagation tool

No one makes you watch these things. You don’t get paid to watch them

Shield yourself and your family from these pathways of evil

Identify and do the A+ problem

The person you work for has a thing they need doing

Quite often you will see something of bigger value to the person you work for

Identify this thing, speak out, work towards it, ring the bell, sound the alarm, point at it

This A+ problem can exist and for management to never even know it exists.

Your intuition, skill set, experience lead towards identifying and solving the A+ problem

Be passionate

Be passionate in what you do

Life is short, you should enjoy it and get satisfaction and reward from what you do

If your passion burns out, it could be time to take a second look at what you are doing and change something

Exercise

This brings the energy you need to take on the world and to go the whole day without tiring

This keeps you invigorated with your family and loved ones

This keeps you alive

This keeps you happy

Find more hand rails

Listen to your intuition, gut, try to spot patterns and distil your own hand rails for future decision making

Reading books also helps for identifying and absorbing hand rails for making decisions

Wealth is how much you keep

Keep your outgoings as low as possible and don’t have lifestyle creep as you earn more money.

You can retire early, even on a tiny salary if you keep your savings rate high relative to your income

Follow a prioritized todo list every day

Have a prioritized to do list that you look at every day - it should be moving you towards your Action Goals

I’ve found when I’ve removed this list from my life, I will sit in the doldrums for a long period of time.

Find recipes, Follow them

See what others are doing to make big bucks.

Fast track success and copy them.

I’ve done this before and 3x’d my income. I will do it again

Always Learning

Become a forever learner

Listen to audio books, read, watch YouTube

Learn as much as you can before you die

Be yourself - if you don’t fit, leave

If you can’t be your natural character without fear of reprisal or not fitting in

Leave

Life is too short not to be yourself