Investment Diary #16: The Nature of Perception

I’ve been seeing the word cognition in recent years, but I’m still not quite sure what cognition can do for me, is it just chicken soup? Recently I’ve come to a bit of an understanding, not that much, but it’s starting to become clearer.

Cognition is essentially your way of seeing things. Everyone has their own way of thinking, like Munger’s multi-dimensional grid model, where you see the world differently from other people when you look at it from different perspectives. That’s why this point is amazing, you are uniquely you and no one can replace you. Time and space are occupied by you alone, so the world is fair from that point of view.

Cognition is about reshaping your brain. Zhang Chaoyang said that everyone’s brain can be reshaped, and I believe that too. I don’t believe in the theory of fate, I believe in self-suggestion and deliberate practice, and later I want to learn about the brain nerves to see how to improve my ability to remodel myself.

Duan Yongping said that all the decisions you make in your life will make you the person you are at the end of the day, the person you are supposed to be, which is actually a probability question. This statement, I understand that the perception of investment is essentially a probability question. Taleb said that the world is inherently uncertain, black swans exist at any time, how to benefit from uncertainty is not a probability problem. From “Extraordinary Success” to “Walking Wall Street” all recommend solid index investing, the simple truth may be the avenue to ultimate success in a random stroll through the stock market.

What is the perception of entrepreneurship? From a financial freedom perspective (and in other senses, of course, your own value, i.e., self-perception.) Speaking is about getting active income, something you can do in addition to index investing under passive income. How to make the entrepreneurial thing, everyone’s perception is different, for example, the ideal car CEO Li Want, he feels that the CEO is focused on the industry advantage + industry problems + attack direction, but Lei Jun or Steve Jobs, or even Ali’s CEO may be different, maybe the essence is the same. For the individual independent entrepreneur, it may be how to start a low-cost business Investment Diary #8: Minimalist Entrepreneurial Laws for Programmers, or entrepreneurial thinking like how to start creating a product that I shared in my last post. You see that different people and environments look at things differently, it’s all about perception. The key is still to take advantage of your perceived opportunities and make it your own.

Having said that, I think it ultimately comes back to the self, the perception of the self is the most important, and then the perception of the surrounding environment. Recently read a book < 7 habits of highly effective people >, combined with the previous book “from the director to the general ledger” a little gain. Previously have not been able to pick up this book, the preconceived notion that it is a book of chicken soup, nothing soft. But in fact not, every input will be rewarding, will bring you change, life in a lot of answers can be found in the book.

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The book takes two perspectives, one on individual success and one on public success. Individual Success starts with three habits: Proactivity is about personal choice, Beginning with the End in Mind is about self-leadership, and Being First is about self-management. Public success is based on win-win thinking, understanding one’s own self, and integrating and synthesising. The last habit is continuous self-renewal.

Individual Success 🔗︎

Proactivity represents a principle of action and commitment. You can choose the good side or the bad negative side. Being proactive is a basic principle.

Showing love is not a feeling, it’s a proactive giving and the more you give the more you save (trust) in your emotional account. You have responsibility which at the same time means you have power. Output and capacity are well balanced. Being proactive means you focus on your circle of influence, not your circle of concern, don’t commit easily, and when you do commit you will do your best to deliver.

How to get yourself into action. Many people are introverted, in fact, there are three factors, 1 is the lack of a supportive mentor, the mentor’s power is the key to support you to go out and be able to guide you, 2 is that you are not well prepared, just like communicating with others, you do not have enough information reserve, not enough thinking programme, inevitably have no courage, 3 is that you do not deliberately practice, for example, Investment Diary #7: Three Models of Importance to Career Advancement Mentioned in the workplace visibility skills, a quick go over the outline before the presentation, and practice at home with relatives or in the mirror. Most importantly, what is your motivation? When you figure out your goal, which is to start with the end in mind, you add a few more points to your courage.

The habit of starting with the end in mind represents a mission. Everyone has a role in society and a mission or responsibility, even if you don’t have any dreams, you have responsibilities, and having responsibilities means you necessarily have a mission. What is your mission? What is your value?

Firstly you have to discover your strengths.

You have to discover what your favourite things are, and you can probably locate them by asking three questions. What do you like to do? This thing is what you like to do in your free time, and it’s key to have fun with it, such as exercising or writing. What things are you better at? For example, you communicate, exercise, music, etc., that is, what you do better than those around you. Which environment are you most comfortable in? Do you prefer to work alone or collaboratively, do you prefer a comfortable or creative environment. You can ask yourself, if I were financially free today, what would I still like to do? Of course you can pass some tests like the Gallup Strengths Test.

When you know your strengths, you can then accept yourself and identify with yourself. Warren Buffett says one should focus more on the internal scorecard, which is what you do that is positive for you, rather than evaluations from the outside. Munger also says that jealousy and presumption mean nothing. It’s all about trying to express the key factor in one’s happiness, which is to start from within and find yourself.

When you are internally identified, you can become your authentic self.

Let’s assume that you establish a mission to be a responsible person to your family, a purposeful person at work or in your career, and a person who has some influence on society. You will have demands on yourself and you will consider your roles as a husband, son, etc. The focus of your life may be biased towards family, money, power, etc. This book tells us to learn to be centred on principles and to use your wisdom to deal with things correctly, and the ability to deal with wisdom requires the help of Habit 3 and Habits 4, 5 and 6.

The influence of one’s childhood is huge, I see from the book Intimacy that most of the irrational behaviours of people are related to their childhood. And one’s goals or self-identity are also inseparable from one’s experiences. To tap into one’s deepest perceptions, meditation is a good way.

To matter the first lecture on self-management. This includes attention management, goal management, and time management. Focus on what is important and not urgent in the second quadrant, rather than making things urgent and important in the first quadrant. Learn to say “no”. Move from directive to accountable delegation, with clear expectations of results, guidelines (principles and directions, possible obstacles and problems, limits of behaviour), available resources (human, financial, technical, organisational), task assessment (performance standards and timing), and clear rewards and penalties (good or bad results).

Public Success 🔗︎

Public success cannot be achieved without human relationships, which are essentially emotional account savings and contain courtesy, honesty, kindness and credit. Starting from these aspects: understanding others, keeping promises, clear expectations (expectations should not be implicit), integrity and honesty (do not denigrate others), the courage to apologise, and unconditional love.

The flip side of the problem is the opportunity, the chance to build emotional account savings.

There are six modes of interpersonal interaction, win-win, win-lose, lose-lose, no deal, win (I win), and lose-lose. Habit four is win-win thinking. Most people are competitive because they are all about learning, and most of them are brought into society with a competitive relationship in mind, but win-win is at the heart of what it takes to be successful. Of course, I lose, you win is not consistent with the principle of being proactive.

The five keys to win-win thinking are: character, relationship, agreement, system, and process.

Character means that you are first and foremost a person of integrity, and secondly, you need to be mature. (First time I’ve seen the definition of maturity: the ability to express one’s own emotions and beliefs while at the same time being able to empathise with the thoughts and feelings of others, which simply means having the courage to do what is right and being understanding at the same time), and thirdly, being content, which means believing that the cake is big enough.

Relationship means that there is an emotional account savings between us. Otherwise certainly not work with you, there is no trust between us.

On top of the previous two foundations, it is possible to establish a win-win agreement. That is to say, clear expected results, guidelines (principles and directions, possible obstacles and difficulties, limits of behaviour), available resources (human, financial, technical, organisational resources), task assessment (performance standards and time), clear rewards and penalties (whether the results are good or bad).

For win-win to really happen there needs to be a system to guarantee it. If a company he advocates win-win, but his organisation is a win-lose model of rewards and penalties (that is, the end of the market elimination of this kind) is certainly not work.

The win-win process refers to knowing the other side and understanding oneself, truly understanding the other side’s ideas, needs and concerns, rather than starting from a position of position, and finally finding solutions and results acceptable to all.

The above win-win process talks about knowing the other person and understanding oneself, which is also known as Habit 5, and the core point to be expressed is to do effective communication. It is important to distinguish between emotional and rational responses. Emotional reaction, can be expressed from the other side of the perspective of understanding, but not the same as recognition, and when he rationally want to discuss, you can really find out what the other side of the problem is.

Finally, to find the optimal solution from a number of options, to get the final result, is habit six to express the unity of the synergy, in short, is to seek common ground while reserving differences, respect for differences, but still see the advantages of the other side, and ultimately to achieve the group’s goals.

Constant renewal 🔗︎

The greatest human capacity is the ability to create, not financial independence, which is the greatest sense of inner security or self-identity Self-renewal comes in four main areas: physical, intellectual, spiritual, and social/emotional.

The body belongs to the second quadrant, which is important but not urgent. But once it deteriorates it becomes important and urgent, so it is important to prevent it in advance. Physical training is done in several ways: endurance (the pulse rate of the heart should be: 220 - age, multiply the result by 0.6 to have a training effect), toughness, strength (a muscle should have fibre breaks to have a training effect).

Intellectual level: regular reading of literary masterpieces, Harvard classics, biographies of famous people, National Geographic, etc., constant writing and thinking, etc.

The spiritual level refers to self-identity, what your mission is, what your values are.

The social/emotional is mostly about how to deal with the interpersonal aspect, i.e. Habits 5 and 6 exercises.