Pareto Winning Strategy

Pareto Winning Strategy

The 80/20 Rule is Divine

• 80 percent of the outputs are caused by 20 percent of the inputs.

People have changed their life upon discovering this principle of personal effectiveness.  Tim Ferris in his book, “The Four Hour Workweek,” made a big deal out of the Pareto Principle.  Stephen Covey, the guru of personal effectiveness, called this Quadrant Two, in his popular book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

Stephen Covey and the Seven Habits

Stephen Covey popularized the now famous Matrix with Urgency on the X-axis and Importance on the Y-Axis.  Quadrant One is both Urgent and Important, while Quadrant Two is Important but not Urgent.  He recommends retooling our lives to spend most of our time in Quadrant Two.  Many important but not urgent things often get dropped like relationship building, creativity, recreation, exercise, and planning.  But these things give us the biggest bang for our buck - they are the 20% of inputs that give us the greatest output of 80%.

Pareto 20% causes 80%

Pareto noticed something interesting.  The ration of 20/80 applied in many areas.  80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the population.  80% of your revenues come from only 20% of your customers.  80% of your problems come from 20% of the people you interact with.  Focusing on your top 20% priorities will give you the biggest bang for an 80% return on effects.

Strategy for Success

Tim Ferris in his book, “The Four Hour Workweek,” describes something very similar to the following.  The night before you begin you next day, sit with a notepad and write down all the things you think you are supposed to do for the next few days.  (Do not use a computer or any other electronic device for this task as electronics will distract you and even cause you to write 100 tasks, which is ridiculous.)  Hone down the list to the top 20% that will push you toward your top 3 highest priorities.  Write down only 2 tasks on this piece of paper to do tomorrow.  Do not end your day until these items are complete.  If you do not complete one of these two, perhaps you need to think more carefully about what really is important for that day next time you perform this evaluation.  Take at most 2 hours to perform each task.  Force yourself to complete each task within 2 hours or fewer.  This is Parkinson’s Rule per Tim Ferris.  When you force yourself to perform a task within a limited or even insane amount of time, you cut out the unnecessary fat from the task, leaving only the essential.  Non-essentials are exactly that: not essential!  So, why do non-essential things for work?  Save this time for recreation and relationship time, or study time.

What to Ignore

We are granted 24 hours in a day.  We must spend this limited amount of time on something.  When we choose to spend it on X, we choose not to spend it on Y.  We must understand this clearly.  We cannot do everything we want to do in one day.  We have to focus on things that give us the biggest return on investment - the biggest bang for the buck.  So, ignore people when they say foolish things like “Everything is important!”  No, not everything is important.  The word important suggests priorities, and priorities suggest that our time is better spent on some things rather than other things.  We are capable of filling our schedules with crap - and this happens by default unless we control this process by focusing on our highest priorities.

So, as yourself at least 4 times per day, “What are the top 20% of important things that I should be spending time on?”  Look at your bottom 80% of low priorities and cut them out completely.  Do not hesitate if you want to be a high performer.  Letting unimportant things slide is the more important skill in setting priorities and goals.  Forget the bottom 80%.  Forget it!  Perhaps you may delegate it, but under no circumstance are you to act on the bottom 80% of your priorities.

Focus on your top 20% of priorities and forget the bottom 80%.

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Freddy Martini

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Sunday, October 26, 2014

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I finished the audio book on Steve Jobs.  I am listening to it once more.  It is that good.  Once every few decades a genius changes the way we do things; this genius resets the way we experience and see the world.  I will point out a few things in this essay that struck me personally, listening to the story of this life of extreme triumph and loss.

Travel to India

Jobs wandered to India in his early years.  This voyage had a lasting effect on him.  He mentioned that Indians had a high level of intuition that westerners did not appreciate or use.  He said that he learned that rational thought processes were not the only way to think about things and that intuition was very important - perhaps more important than rational methods.  Jobs would trust his intuition throughout his life, and this was a theme of his that set him apart from other technical leaders.

Calligraphy

At Reed college, Jobs took a class in calligraphy.  This exposed him to the ideas of beauty and how typefaces vary widely and the effect on beauty can be manipulated using different methods.  This was another theme that Apple would have: the use of graphics and bitmapping to integrate many different fonts to dazzle the user with not just technical showmanship, but with beauty.

Gestalt Techniques and End to End Design

Connecting his interest in Zen Buddhism, he was exposed to design techniques that emphasized a holistic approach.  Throughout his life he was obsessed with control over the product so that it would be a completely integrated experience for the user.  The hardware and the software would be tightly integrated, and the physical design had to be infused with beauty and with the care of an artist.  Jobs cared about the art just as much as he cared about the engineering.  He did not want people to be able to get into the hardware or mess around with the software so that things would be disintegrated and messy like the Microsoft approach.  One may think of Jobs’ approach as that of designing a beautiful appliance like a microwave oven; nobody would every think about writing a virus for a microwave oven or modifying its user interface to accept add ons from other manufacturers trying to improve the microwave after it was sold to the end customer.

User Experience

Jobs even wanted to control the user experience down to the opening of the product box.  As anyone who ever purchased Apple products knows, the packaging is perfect.  Every little detail of the cardboard box, the plastic, the shock absorber foam is absolutely perfect - both mechanically and aesthetically.  Opening the box of an Apple product is a ritual.  It is an experience.  It is a sequence of events designed to draw in the customer toward the product as  an artist who has made a painting draws the eyes of the observer, with the additional feature of a dance ritual - a movement toward a marriage of customer and product.

Insanely Great

Jobs wanted his products to not only be good and great, but insanely great.  This means that the user will be dazzled with an integrated work of art and engineering.  It was to be the best of art and technology in a unified whole.  One often thinks of some Japanese quality approached that is often translated into English as “Customer Delight,” but one alternative translation - and perhaps a more important translation - is an idea almost like the word Salvation.  It is as if Jobs was out to save souls: his and his customer’s soul with the marriage of customer to product to the company called Apple.

Change the World

Jobs was not shy about what he was doing.  I think he asked a marketing director candidate working for Pepsi Cola something along these lines, “Do you want to change the world or do you want to continue to sell sugary sodas?”

Reality Distortion Filter

There is a lot of discussion about Jobs’ reality distortion filter.  He was a very charismatic man.  He had a forceful personality.  He was a gifted salesman.  He seriously believed that he would change the world.  He would never have customer focus groups.  He did not think that the customer knew what he wanted.  He was very dramatic in introducing his products to the world and getting his fans very excited about Apple products.  He was extremely convincing.

The irony is that many people thought this was a distortion of reality.  The irony is on all of us.  It is actually the opposite.  We are all stuck in this reality distortion filter.  We are stuck in modes of thoughts and ways of doing things.  We cannot imagine a different way of doing things.  It takes a genius to change our minds and to show us the way.  Steve Jobs clearly perceived reality as it really was.  We are the ones with the Reality Distortion Filter.  We are the blind ones.

He had the eyes, ears, and heart to perceive reality.

He was the genius.  

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Freddy Martini

Human Sacrifice

Advisory: This post is not for the squeamish!

Human Sacrifice

When you change your story, you change your life.  –Freddy Martini

This is a meditation on religion and how it relates to human sacrifice.

The Enemy

If you have normal levels of testosterone, you have wanted to kill someone.  Perhaps some time ago, or perhaps yesterday.  In fact, society has a desire to kill someone.  We all want a scapegoat.  Human nature is designed for warfare.  Factions develop naturally.  When there is peace, this means that the other side has been exterminated, and factions have not risen yet because not enough time has passed.  After one faction exterminates another group, there is a temporary calm and peace after the shock of violence, killing, and sacrifice of the victim. 

Rene Girard has spent a lifetime developing this line of inquiry. 

Factions

We see it every day.  Political factions develop.  Initially, the disagreements are benevolent.  Then they become increasingly bitter, and then eventually turn violent.  Both sides see the other as the cause of their misery, and if they could just kill off the bad guys, all would be well in the world.  Or, so they think. 

Repeating the Story Forever and Ever

The French Revolutionaries thought that killing the King and the nobility would solve all their problems.  The King, you know, was the root of all their misery and those evil nobles took all the money, and the church controlled everyone because they wanted power, and all that.  So, they killed off the nobility, they had their Reign of Terror, chopping off the heads of perhaps 30, 000 people, we are told.  But, of course, we know the rest of the story.  After this, a strongman took over France and increased the violence to a point where France would not recover for over 50 years.  Yes, and then there was the Franco-Prussian War, The Great War, and then the War against Hitler, then the Cold War, then the War on Terror, etc.  History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes. 

Emergence of a Tribe

Some argue from an evolutionary perspective that the creation of factions in human nature is the emergence of a separate tribe.  Since we can only know and deal with about 150 people, beyond this point, factions will develop, and eventually war, and then the survivors, if any, will form two new tribes. 

Placing the Blame

Everyone has problems.  We all face death, and we have to struggle to achieve the things we want.  The easy way out – everyone wants to have an easy life, right? – is to blame our problems on someone else.  It is just too easy.  We screw up, we sin, we fail, and we get frustrated with this state of affairs.  It becomes easy to say, “This bad dude is causing all kinds of trouble!  We need to stop him!”  Thus, it all begins.  One faction organizes to fight off the bad guy, whom they have identified as the cause of all their troubles.  Small skirmishes begin.  People begin to kill others.  The bitterness rises as the body count stacks up.  Eventually everyone is so enraged with the enemy who has killed so many of their family and tribesmen, that there is no hope in reconciliation – there is only extermination as the answer since they cannot live with the enemy.  Thus, the drama continues until absolute victory of one side or another.  Then the victors are calm again – for some time.  The violence has shocked them in to a state of numbness. 

The First Solution

Men began the ritual sacrifice of humans to alleviate this pattern of human nature.  If the tribe gathers around the campfire, sings and dances, and emerges into a fury and trance.  Then the young virgin appears.  The men bind the virgin in ropes –they tie her hands and feet.  They place her in the middle of the tribe.  She begs for her life, but the tribe is in a frenzy of sound and dance.  They scream in ecstasy.  The priest places the virgin on the altar.  He raises his sharp knife above her chest.  He holds still for a while as the tribe focuses on the knife and the victim on the altar.  Everyone is beginning to experience the horror and screams of violence at sacrificing such an innocent victim.  The blade comes down, pierces her heart.  She screams and blood flows.  Women and children moan, wail, and weep at the horror of the sacrificial killing.  The family of the virgin is in shock.  The music becomes louder to drown out the pain of the horrific event.  Everyone begins to shout louder and louder in frenzy around the fire.  Many faint.  Some vomit.  After 3 hours, everyone is tired.  They settle down in shock, horror, and numbness from the horrible sacrifice and the frenzy of music dancing and shouting.  

The horror placates their lust for violence for perhaps one year or six months until the next ritual human sacrifice.

The Second Solution

Abraham and his buddies sacrificed the finest animals they could find.  A burnt offering was the ritual cooking of a beast.  The violence of stabbing a beast to death on an altar perhaps alleviated some of the extremes of human sacrifice.  The scapegoat took on all of our sins for one year, until another sacrifice was required.

One can imagine that hunters are already accustomed to the agony of an animal being killed.  One wonders what great leap the offering of the animal would provide for improvements in religions – perhaps the women and children were now exposed to such violence in ritual fashion?  Perhaps the men who did not hunt and kill needed to be reminded too.  Apparently it provided some reprieve for the lust for violence instead of finding some enemy to kill or sacrifice.  One imagines that it would take a lot more killing of animals to equal the horror or one human sacrifice. 

The Christian Solution

The next evolution in providing for a ritual for man to receive forgiveness and grace for sin, and to replace a human scapegoat with something non-human was the sacrifice of God himself for all the sins of Man. 

The Church evolved to the point where bloody images of Christ were everywhere to see.  The full horror of human sacrifice of Christ was encapsulated in the entire liturgy of the Church.  Confession of Sins, Absolution of Sins from the priest, the ritual dedication of the pieces of flesh and blood from the human sacrifice above the altar in a recreation of the Crucifixion, the absolute horror of consumption of human sacrifice with Holy Communion “Take this all of you and eat it – this is my body to be given up for you” – all this met a deep need in humanity for the forgiveness and absolution of sin in addition to human sacrifice for such sins.  If one thinks deeply about the meaning of this ritual and the horrible and magnificent words, “This is the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant!” 

The ultimate form of human sacrifice: the sacrifice of God himself on the bloody altar.  Not only this, but the story does not end in the death of god as the sacrifice for sins, and the death of a god as a scapegoat.  The death of God happens, and then God comes back to life in the Resurrection.  One can imagine why Christianity was a scandal to the pagan world.  Christianity basically claimed that the solution to the sinfulness of man was the sacrifice and killing of God himself, and the death was not really death, because he came back to life!  It is kind of a New Story that says, “We have found a happy ending!”  Everyone “knew” that there is no happy ending, but Christianity made this bold and scandalous claim. 

Of course modern Christianity perhaps no longer scares the crap out of us as it was intended to do, along with the happy ending.  Protestantism in particular has lost the complete sensation of ritual with the classic liturgy with art, incense, sound, and imagery to recreate as much as possible the sensation of a ritual human sacrifice.  Some of the traditional churches have retained some of the sensuous intent like the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Lutherans, and the Anglicans. 

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It seems that for Christianity to work, it has to be scandalous and shocking.  It has to recreate the horror of human sacrifice with the liturgy.  It is not just a matter of “doctrine” or “belief” in a list of crap someone wrote on a Catechism pamphlet.  It must recall the reason the God of the universe had himself killed on a bloody altar.  People must perceive the horror of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of a human sacrifice.  People must understand why the “Happy Ending” of the Resurrection is so scandalous and insane to a normal understanding of human nature.

Then, the Phoenix may rise from the ashes, and we can remember what we have forgotten.

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Freddy Martini

Mind-Body Problem

Mind-Body Problem

When you change your story, you change your life.  –Freddy Martini

The Setup

“It is all in your mind.”  “You are just imagining things.”  “You are living in a dream world.”

You have heard it.  You have said it.  And, that, my friends is the danger.

What is Real

It is not a question, “What is real?” but a statement “What is real.”  Since Descartes came on the scene around 500 years ago, this problem has been with us – Je pense; alors, je suis (I think, therefore I am).  It is the Mind in a Vat.  It is the Ghost in the Machine.  It is The Matrix – yes, the famous movie.  How do I know if I am dreaming right now?  How would I know if I were inside the matrix like Neo, Morpheus and Trinity? 

The Problem

You don’t.  You cannot know whether or not you are in The Matrix. 

How do external physical objects get into the mind?  Perhaps through the sensory organs.  And, this creates other problems such as, how much distortion happens when perception passes through the sensory organs.  How much of this woman I perceive in front of me corresponds to something physically out there?  This leads us to Immanuel Kant, and perhaps even to Berkeley.  Do we verify that what we perceive is actually out there?  Well, anything we perceived as “out there” has to be perceived through something, like an eye or an ear, so, no, we cannot get to the difference between what we perceive in the mind and what is “really” out there.

Do unicorns exist?  We may be tempted to say, “No.”  However, there are two problems with this answer.  The first is the Problem of Induction – observations cannot prove propositions – one discovery of a black swan destroys the proposition that all swans are white.  The other problem is the nature of reality.  If I can conceive something, then I can count it as real.  The unicorn is real – it is in my mind, my mind is real, thoughts are real, and thus, this unicorn is real.

What is the answer to this?  You may say I am using my imagination, and that I have never seen a unicorn in reality.  But – slow down – what is real again?  Are the contents of my mind real?  If the answer is yes, then unicorns really exist.  Now, this sounds bizarre, perhaps to some.  But, let us take this one step further into the Philosophy of Mind.

Numbers and Reality

So, the contents of the mind are real, but we are doubtful that we can say that unicorns are real, right?  I mean, this is just for crazy people right?  Well, read on.

The square root of 2.  √2  What is this?  It is a mathematical concept.  I find a number and multiply it times itself and get the number 2.  The square root of 2.  Simple mathematics.  If you are still with me, let us now go one step further.  Is this number real?  Not many would deny the reality of the square root of 2.  However, where does this number exist?  Is this number out there in external reality outside of our minds?  Think carefully about this.  The answer is “no.”  Nobody can point with their finger to something out there in reality called the square root of 2. 

If you are still with me, we have established that there is this real thing called the square root of 2, and it does not exist as a physical object.  It is a mathematical concept – it is a relational concept.  It is just a concept.  It is not an object.  It is not physical.  You cannot perform an experiment to determine the physical characteristics of the square root of two. 

And, if you are still following, we can go one more step into the abyss and declare the same thing about all numbers.  How does this work?  Well, point to me in physical space the number 127.  Nobody can.  Point to me in physical space where I can find the number 5.  You cannot.  Numbers are not physical existents.  Here is the shocking take-away:

Numbers exist only in the Mind 

If you have trouble wrapping your head around this, a little trick to bring you back to the idea is as follows.  Always remember to think about the square root of 2 and try to point to it in the physical world.  That will bring you back to clear thinking about the concept of physical existents versus existents that can only be in the mind.  Try to get this clear in your mind before going further.  When you have this clear in your mind, you are ready to dance on the edge of the abyss!

The Mind Body Problem

If we have no way of connecting something as simple and real as numbers to physical reality, then how do we say that unicorns do not exist?  How can we say that dreams are not real?  How can we separate fantasy from reality?  You have now jumped into the abyss and are now dancing with me in the abyss.  Come join the party.  It is fun down here!  Okay, let us get back to the discussion.

What is it like to see the color red?  Can you perform experiments to determine how I see the color red?  Can you hook up wires to my head and observe how I see red?  Can you hook up wires to my head and observe how I experience a cool fresh glass of pure pristine water?  Can these wires and this equipment determine how this woman sitting at the edge of the bar experiences that elegant taste of Martini in her glass?

No.  Absolutely not.  You cannot get to the interiority of the mind except your own. 

But this interiority - this experience of ours - is absolutely real.  It is often more real than external physical reality.  People with depression can testify to this.

The Problem of Science

Modern science focuses on the Objective – an object external to the subject.  Modern science cannot get to my experience – the Subjective.  However, the Subjective is perhaps even more real than the objects science measures!  When people dismiss things as purely Subjective, they are making a critical and perhaps fatal mistake: the mistake of blindness.  One cannot know the various hues, themes and variations of reality by excluding “Subjective” reality.  The Philosophy of Existentialism has a lot to say about the Subject.

What does science say about the Subject?  Nothing.  Science deals with objects.  It deals with people as Objects.  It deals with emotions, desire, and love as an object of study.  This is where it is incomplete. 

Here is the core issue of science: Science only deals with half of reality: The Objects.  Science cannot deal with the other half of reality: The Subjective.

With a scientific worldview, you are only getting things half right.  You are blinding yourself to most of reality to fit the methodology of investigating physical objects. 

Here is the shocking truth: In the Mind-Body Dichotomy, Science has chosen to look at the Body, and has closed off all investigations of Mind as illegitimate. 

This is where people make a fatal mistake of dismissing religion, literature and art – the other half of human reality.  And, this other half of human reality is where the Soul resides – the identity of who we are, why we are here, and where we go from here, and why we get up in the morning and choose the hard life of Existentialism instead of the easy life of comfort and ease.

Physical science cannot explain Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Napoleon, or Louis XIV, because the Mind – the other half of reality – explains these things, and not physical science.  Where is the equation for Steve Jobs?  What hypothesis can we put forth that produces another Thomas Edison? 

Stories

Humans relate to each other by telling stories.  We pretend to reason with one another and discuss things.  However, in all cases, the things we say must meet a certain expectation.  Think about the English language.  Subject ->Verb –>Object.  Often, western languages are structured for cause and effect relations.  The Subject ->Verb –>Object structure is based upon cause and effect, but also tells a story.  What is cause and effect?  A story.  When I flip a switch and then a light comes on, this is cause and effect, but it is also a story.  When the laws of physics tell us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, it explains cause and effect, but at the same time fitting the narrative of a story.  Even science is a narrative – a story.  We cannot think or communicate outside of narratives and stories.

But stories can be rewritten.  We can write our own stories.  As long as they sound plausible and fit the structure of a story, they work.  The Greek and Roman gods were grand narratives and stories.  The Old and New Testaments are full of stories that have survived the test of time.  These stories are printed on pages, yes, but they only come to life in our minds.  On page, these stories are paper and ink – physical artifacts of no value.  When they enter our minds, they come alive – and give us life in the process.

Your Story

The only thing that matters is what you believe.  You can rewrite a lot of what you are thinking.  Steve Jobs rewrote a lot of our scripts for what we want in interpersonal communications.  You are probably not Steve Jobs, but you can rewrite a lot more of your scripts than you perhaps give yourself credit for.

So, what is your story?  Which stories sustain you?  Which ones give you life? 

Change your narrative – your story – and change your life.

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Freddy Martini

Absence of Evidence and Evidence of Absence

Absence of Evidence and Evidence of Absence

Recall the Black Swan

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The Problem of Induction is haunting as I intimated here in my review of Jeffery Kasser’s lecture on the problem.  You have probably heard the saying, “There is no evidence to support that,” as if providing proof that the lack of evidence means something.  The converse is the case, “I have tested 1000 pieces of copper and all conduct electricity, therefore all copper conducts electricity.”  This is the problem of induction because when I find one piece of copper that does not conduct electricity, the claim is proven false.  This is also called the Black Swan problem when the rare event – the Black Swan – has not yet been admitted into the evidence locker, as it were, and we conclude that there are no black swans – until someone finds a black swan!

We have probably heard the saying, “Proof is in the positive.”  However, we all know that providing positive evidence proves nothing, because one piece of negative evidence disproves any theory.  The only proofs that we know of are in mathematics and in Deductive Reasoning.  Inductive Reasoning has no methodology of proof.

Lawyers Listen Up!

This provides lawyers with methods to attack any attempt in court to prove guilt.  Since proving guilt involves evidence to a fact, and since evidence is often largely be based upon scientific principles, which all are based on Inductive Reasoning and methods, we can logically attack and destroy any evidence based upon science as invalid.

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One legal strategy is to allow the prosecution to have fun and use the testimony and resources of science in argument.  Afterward, the defense can merely use the methods of the Philosophy of Science in attacking the Problem of Induction - and even the Problem of Demarcation for good measure – to systematically destroy any prosecutor who is so foolish to base his arguments upon science.  This is basically setting up the prosecution for an exterminating ambush.  More data means nothing when one piece of evidence can disprove a case and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Such a methodology would be good against planted evidence.  It would bring back the old-fashioned concept of eye-witnesses for proof. 

A More Volatile and Unpredictable World

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We live in fantasies that the system will “take care of us” because there are smart people somewhere who have everything figured out with regard to our safety and our care.   The problem with this is that we have been sold a narrative from the priests of modernity – scientists and those with scientific pretensions– who have a vested interest in pretending that they have all the answers and everything is under control.  Nothing can be further from the truth.  The world is filled with Black Swans ready to strike at any moment as Nicholas Taleb has told us in his book of the same name.  Everybody wants security and there are soothsayers out there ready to tell us what we want to hear.

The Storyline

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Humans cannot think logically.  So, how do humans think?  I think Ludwig Wittgenstein showed that we all play games called language games and we sit around telling each other stories.  There is the narrative.  The scientific method is essentially a narrative – a particular kind of story we tell each other, pretending it is true.  We gather around the campfire and soothe ourselves with stories with a happy ending – we live happily ever after because we have everything figured out.  The Lord’s Prayer, the Sacraments, the Sacred Liturgy, the Gospel, and the Scientific Method are all Narratives and stories.  Which ones are closer to the truth?  Perhaps those that speak eternal truths to human beings throughout the ages are a little closer to the truth than new methods.  This is not to say that the new methods do not have their uses, but perhaps the stories and the narratives that have withstood the test of time have some sort of Darwinian way of keeping large sectors of humans alive through the centuries and should not be ignored with blind neophilia.

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Freddy Martini