Getting The World To Do The Work For You

“What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson.”
– Joseph Tussman

Dear reader, Tony Robbins describes Three Mandates of Leadership:

First, leaders need to see things as they are, not worse than they are. Especially in times of crisis (and it can always seem like a time of crisis!) people instinctively focus on the worst-case outcome. Millions of years of evolution have wired our brains that way. This doesn’t mean denying reality, but to solve any problem we must first accept reality as it truly is, not worse. And things are almost always not as bad as they seem.

Second, leaders need to see things as better than they are: to have a compelling vision of how the future could be. Remember: the Obstacle is always the Way. It is not the leader’s job to get certainty before acting; it is the leader’s job to be so certain that the vision and future they see can and will become real, and to pour that certainty into those around them.

Third, leaders need to take focused, committed action to make things the way they see it: to turn their vision into a reality. To do so requires understanding the tools and strategies that will get us there: no amount of belief or certainty will help if you run East looking for a sunset.

“Human history is a fragment of biological history. If we are to learn enduring lessons it is best to go back in time.”
– Will Durant, The Three Lessons of Biological History

So how do we align with reality, and get the world to do the work for us? By studying patterns; by understanding what has come before us. Too often we spend our time looking at the world in the most shallow way. Focused only on what has just recently happened, we extrapolate that that has and will always be the way that things are.

In short, our datasets are far too small. How often do we look back upon the entirety of our lives to gather data on how we should make a decision, let alone back across the vast span of human history? How often do we arrogantly believe that our problems are unique; that no one before has faced the same problems? Whatever your “unique” problem is, I guarantee that someone, somewhere, someplace in history has faced that same problem, and found a way to overcome. And probably written a book about it.

“Every statistician knows that a large, relevant sample size is their best friend. What are the three largest, most relevant sample sizes for identifying universal principles? Bucket number one is inorganic systems, which are 13.7 billion years in size. It’s all the laws of math and physics, the entire physical universe. Bucket number two is organic systems, 3.5 billion years of biology on Earth. And bucket number three is human history, you can pick your own number, I picked 20,000 years of recorded human behavior. Those are the three largest sample sizes we can access and the most relevant.”
– Peter Kaufman

Instead, we should consider the most statistically relevant datasets: that of human history; that of biological history; and that of physical history. Peter Kaufman writes that these three “buckets of knowledge” are the oldest and most invariant. In short: the Rules of the Universe; the Rules of the Earth; and the Rules of Humanity.

If a book has been in print for a hundred years, there is a good chance it will be in print a year hence. A bestseller hot off the press? Who knows. Likewise an idea, a fundamental truth about the world, that has been around for a hundred years is likely to endure. Focus on Principles, not Tactics.

“If you’re not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you.”
– Mike Tyson

If we do not align with reality and learn its lessons, the world will teach us a lesson. And keep teaching us that lesson until we get it. Just as I believe that we cannot see past the decisions that we do not yet understand, we cannot see past the lessons that we have not yet learned.

Yours Sincerely,
Henry Chong