Category / business

by frankploegman

Met de volgende tips kan ook jij uitgroeien tot de beste voorspellers ter wereld

Voor de duidelijkheid: het volgende artikel is niet serieus bedoeld. Het bevat ware kennis die voorspellers en beïnvloeders leren om te krijgen wat zij willen. Op zich is de kennis niet schadelijk, maar het onethisch gebruik ervan wel.

Dit artikel is bedoeld om de lezer te helpen de gebruikte trucs te doorzien. Als je de handleiding van jouw potentiële tegenstanders kent, kun je jezelf tegen hen wapenen.

Het artikel helpt je ook om beter te leren denken en meer van de menselijke natuur te herkennen. Ik geloof dat het goed is om te proberen te begrijpen hoe de wereld echt werkt… en die kennis dan voor een goed doel in te zetten.

De tips en trucs

  • Maak onspecifieke voorspellingen: “Het gaat binnenkort regenen.” Als het een maand later regent of ergens in de wereld een druppel valt, zeg je triomfantelijk “Ik zei het toch!”
  • Voorspel open deuren: Voorspel in het regenseizoen in de tropen dat het vandaag flink gaat regenen. Zo bouw je een perfect track record op. Staat goed op je cv.
  • Zet de doelpalen zo wijd dat je voorspelling altijd raak is: “Dit jaar valt tussen 1 en 1000 mm regen.”
  • Dek jezelf in [a.k.a. op meerdere paarden wedden]: “Er kan neerslag vallen, maar het kan ook droog blijven.” Om je tactiek wat te verhullen, zeg je de tegenstrijdige voorspellingen op verschillende momenten, dus niet pal achter elkaar.
  • Voorspel het verleden: “Ik wist altijd al dat het gisteren zou gaan regenen.” Bonuspunten voor een ingewikkeld verhaal waarom je dat wist.
  • Doe heel veel voorspellingen… en vergeet dan alle keren dat je het mis had: Voorspel 29 keer fout dat het morgen gaat regenen en als het dan op de 30e dag regent, klop jezelf dan op de borst.

Met deze tips kun ook jij de volgende beurscrash (of beursrally) voorspellen. Daarna kan je een bestseller schrijven, drukbezochte en duurbetaalde seminars geven, en geïnterviewd worden op CNN. Aandacht, aanzien, roem, geld, macht, wat wil je nog meer?

“Economists are the only professionals who can make an excellent living without ever being right in their entire careers.”

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by frankploegman

Verwandeling

Wel eens van een verwandeling gehoord? Dat is een wandelende vergadering.

  • Heb je meteen lichaamsbeweging.
  • Adem je frisse lucht in.
  • Het werkt rustgevend en ontspannend (gunstig voor de mensen én de vergadering).
  • Je ogen worden blootgesteld aan fel zonlicht en je kijkt ook verder weg (waardoor je minder snel bijziend wordt).
  • Zonlicht schijnt op je huid (waardoor het vitamine D aanmaakt waar je immuunsysteem behoefte aan heeft).
  • Je lichaam wordt blootgesteld aan kou en warmte (zie respectievelijk Wim Hof en Dr. Rhonda Patrick)
  • De neuzen wijzen letterlijk dezelfde kant op, wat onnodige conflicten kan verminderen.
  • Eventueel uitgeademde vochtdruppeltjes met corona virusdeeltjes verwaaien en worden door zonlicht onschadelijk gemaakt.
  • Er zijn ook aanwijzingen dat je brein beter werkt als je beweegt en in de natuur bent. (Iemand die film A Beautiful Mind gezien waar de briljante wiskundige John Nash alsmaar in een figuur 8 fietst?)

Wist je trouwens dat Steve Jobs (oprichter en voormalige directeur van Apple) regelmatig verwandelingen hield?

(De term ‘verwandeling’ heb ik geleerd van Jan Bommerez. Bedankt Jan!)

Business people walking
Business people having a talk while walking in a businesss district
by frankploegman

Book review: What got you here won’t get you there

Book cover What got you here won't get you there

The world owes Marshall Goldsmith a big thank you for the excellent, practical and transformative book What got you here won’t get you there.

The main premise of the book is that if you are already good and want to get better at anything in which other people are involved, the thing that is probably holding you back is some flaw in your interpersonal behavior. The behavior that you need to change is not so much good things that you should start doing, but bad things that you should stop doing. Although it is never easy to change habits, it is usually a lot easier to stop doing one bad habit than to start doing a bunch of good habits. As Goldsmith mentions in the book, it is a lot harder to become a nicer guy than it is to stop being a jerk.

Goldsmith presents an overview of the most common bad habits. We are often not aware that we exhibit this bad behavior and if we are, we probably think that it helps us, even though the opposite is true. If you look closely at the list of bad habits, you will probably come to the conclusion that you also exhibit one or more of the habits. I certainly did. This is a humbling experience and is the start of improvement. You should enlist the help of people who know you well to find out your negative behaviors, since they are very likely to have a more accurate view of you than you have yourself.

Now you are ready to choose the behaviors at which you want to improve and the author then gives you a process to achieve lasting improvement. The main steps are apologizing for your past errant behavior, advertising your intentions to change, following up, listening and thanking, and using a process called feedforward to elicit others help in improving.

The essence of the book is that you are taught how to identify where you are now (here), how to choose where you want to go (there), and how to get from here to there.

Although Goldsmith mainly targets people who are already successful with this book, it is for anybody who deals with people (who doesn’t?) and wants to improve. The principles mentioned are applicable in any area of your life. They will help you to improve your relations with others and become more successful as a result at work, at home and everywhere else.

Do yourself a favor: Buy this book now. Study it carefully. Internalize it. Take action. Enjoy success. Spread the word.

Below is a video of a nice presentation by Marshall Goldsmith in which some principles mentioned in the book are discussed.

by frankploegman

Excellent article: Why Blacksmiths are Better at Startups than You

Josh Kaufman of the Personal MBA attended his subscribers to the following excellent article titled ‘Why Blacksmiths are Better at Startups than You’.

The article talks about start-ups and learning a difficult craft in general, and the necessary emotional intelligence which is necessary. The moral of the article: It is very difficult and scary to start a company, but if you are prepared to develop the necessary knowledge and skills, the world is at your feet. Emotional intelligence (perseverance, patience, dealing with setbacks and critique, discipline to do what is necessary and important, and not what you like to do at that moment, learning to follow advice of experts, etc.) is absolutely essential for success.

The importance of emotional intelligence in this area is comparable to investing. The necessary knowledge is easy and almost all the knowledge for successful long-term investing can be summarized in two simple steps:

  1. Define a suitable portfolio allocation (which percentage of the portfolio will be invested in stocks, bonds, real-estate, etc.) according to your time horizon and maximum volatility  requirements;
  2. Buy one or more widely diversified and cheap index funds according to your portfolio allocation which you rebalance once per year and NEVER EVER deviate from this strategy, no matter what.

The difficulty in investing is almost 100% in the emotional component: Do you have the faith that the chosen strategy will work in the long run? Do you have the fortitude to stick with your strategy, even in challenging times? Do you have the determination to stick with your strategy even when everyone around you is telling your you’re wrong? Do you have the patience to wait for the strategy to work? Do you have the discipline do nothing when you would like to be active?

The lack of basic knowledge and especially the lack of emotional intelligence of many investors, from time to time produces enormous opportunities for long-term investors to beat the market.

Many modern people lack the necessary emotional intelligence to learn difficult crafts. We want something for nothing and we want it now (instant gratification). This, of course, is nothing new, but what is new, is that we are ‘abstracted people living abstracted lives’. Because many of us have lost touch with nature, we have lost touch with nature’s laws. A farmer knows that he cannot reap before he sows, and that he can’t wait until September to start sowing. But students may think that they can get good grades in school without studying or with waiting until the last moment before a test to start studying. Buyers don’t seem to think it is a bad thing to buy stuff on massive amounts of credit.

Business is a reality engine:

Don’t work on the basics every day? You’ll fail.

Don’t market constantly? You’ll fail.

Don’t solve your customer’s pains? You’ll fail.

Don’t ship? Ha!

There you go: business in four sentences.

When modern people get confronted with a reality where results are the only thing that matters and where nature’s laws rule, our ego doesn’t know how to handle this, just like a spoiled child, with all kind of bad behavior as a result. However, once we accept and internalize this fact, life becomes a lot easier (both for us and our teachers), and we can actually achieve something.

Mastering a craft, is ‘incredibly fucking hard’. You’d better be sure you what is awaiting you, so you can decide for yourself in advance if you are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices:

If you’re not in it for the long haul, though, don’t bother. If you’re too special to practice the basics, don’t bother. If you’d rather feel validated than achieve a result, don’t bother. If you’d rather defend the status quo than grow, give up now.

On the other hand, if you know what is awaiting you, that may prevent your from starting…

We need to make difficult decisions:

Do you just want to splash about in the kiddie pool and rebel at the first sign of seriousness…

Or do you want to craft a real business and a real life, with reality as your favorite ally? Do you want to surprise yourself with how much you can achieve?