How To Trust and Ask Questions
The Life Question.
Chapter 1
A Strategy: Looking At the Top. Listening Without Conclusion.
Without Self-Bias, Learn from The Top of The Top.
"What is The Question of Questions?"
This question comes first—before anything you ask or do. Otherwise, your results will be less optimal than they could have been.
Why?
From the last piece,
Life is a simple game. Life is non-biased. All Life is, is how quickly you can receive simple wisdom and simple ways of operation to become simple and more effective.
In short, knowing what decisions you want to make before you make them.
In Fight Club, Jack's apartment explodes.
"..then a volcanic blast of debris
that used to be your furniture and
personal effects blows out your floor-
to-ceiling windows and sails flaming
into the night."
He felt he had it all,
and it’s all gone.
He’s lost everything.
And none of it made him happy.
If you were in that situation, everything you had didn’t make you happy, your life felt meaningless, now you’ve lost it all and now all you feel is embarrassment. You’re stuck, you have nothing, you’re desperate,
Would you pick up the phone,
And call Tyler Durden to save you?
Jack: “I was close to being complete.”
Jack: You buy furniture. You tell yourself: this is the last sofa I'll ever need. No matter what else happens, I've got the sofa issue handled.
Tyler: This is how we fill up our lives.
Jack: I guess so.
Tyler: And, now it's gone.
Jack: All gone.
Tyler: Oh, yeah, you gotta start making the list.
Jack: What list?
Tyler: The "now I get to go out and buy the exact same stuff all over again" list. That list.
Jack: I don't... think so.
Not only did his life not bring him any meaning,
Now he has lost his life and knows that if he tried to get it back, it would still be meaningless. He has no option but to change the game.
But he has to ask the question.
Tyler: We're on our third pitcher of beer. Just ask me.
Jack: Huh?
Tyler: You called me so you could have a place to stay.
Jack: No, I...
Tyler: Why don't you cut the shit and ask if you can stay at my place?
Jack: Would that be a problem?
Tyler: Is it a problem for you to ask?
Jack: Can I stay at your place?
Tyler: Yes, you can.
There is another game.
There are other ways to operate than the ways we think we have to operate.
Subconsciously, there is a way you think you have to play the game, but
What if you didn't?
We are conditioned to take the answers given to us.
As Tyler Durden asked,
Is it a problem to ask questions?
Asking a question gives results.
The Struggling and Many Take Answers.
The Easy and Few Ask Questions.
What Was The Change of The Game?
In Fight Club, Tyler helps Jack stop caring about meaningless things.
A Change of The Game is,
Caring About Meaning.
Caring about meaning is about caring about things that have meaning in your irreplaceable life.
Why?
Meaning is the fundamental human motive behind all actions.
To seek Meaning itself, you have to ask the fundamental question,
"How do I find meaning?"
Tyler Durden's first step to answering this is to stop caring about what doesn't matter.
The first step to finding meaning is to stop caring about what has no meaning to you.
Many Lives are full of Pain in Meaninglessness.
Few Lives are full of Fulfillment in Meaning.
There is an inquiry,
“Is there evidence that when I ask a question I later receive an answer?”
If you can find evidence to this inquiry in your life,
then you have found a law,
if I do this, then this happens.
If you know the result, then you can create the outcome you want.
If you try something new, you have no idea whether or not it will work out,
but if you knew for a certainty that you would receive an answer to a question,
you can control a future outcome.
What if life was actually simple, what if life was a input - output system?
What if life was as simple as give life a prompt, and life returns an answer to that prompt?
The questions you ask become your focus.
Chapter 2
"Somebody asked Charlie Munger about making money. He reinterpreted that and he said what the questioner is actually asking is,
How Do I Get Rich Like You but Faster,
before I end up as a really old guy?"
-How to Get Rich - Naval - YouTube - 2:29
The Life Question Is: Looking At The Top.
Why?
The Many are on a Path that is more Difficult the farther they they Go.
The Few are on a Path that becomes more Easy the Higher they Get.
With This Strategy, The Higher You Go The Easier It Gets.
Are you Where you want to be?
Are you Who you want to be?
Would you want to get to where your Inspiration is?
Do you want to take as long as it took them to get there?
Or,
Do you want to get there now?
You don't just want to get where they got,
you want to go beyond them–in a shorter amount of time.
Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts.
Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day –if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.”
- Charlie Munger
How Do I Become Like You but Faster,
before I end up old?
How? With The Best of The Top of the Top
The life question strategy can give better results than even Charlie Munger can give.
This is because this strategy involves not only involves the Top of the Top,
this also involves only the best of the top,
and greater still,
the result all of those tops combined.
A Question:
How Do I Become [Smarter, Wiser, Stronger, Richer, Attractive, etcetera] Like My Inspiration but Faster?
A Refined Question,
How Can I Become Greater Than My Inspiration, Faster Than They Achieved Greatness?
[So that I can have independence.]
What If A Person Doesn't Have An Inspiration?
For example, many Americans are inspired by the rapper
Curtis James Jackson III, known professionally as 50 Cent.
If you have no living inspirations, you can look to historical inspirations.
For example, Benjamin Franklin is an inspiration to many people because his book, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is easy to read and he chooses 13 virtues to strive to live by.
If you have no historical inspirations, you can look to favorite characters in movies and media. Your favorite characters have traits that you identify with and admire about yourself.
Benjamin Franklin's VIrtues
Chapter III
The Life Question
The life question process: Take your one core question, then apply these two parts.
- Looking: At the Top
- Listening: Without Conclusion.
This results in the strategy:
Without Self-Bias, Learn from The Top of The Top.
I had a self-bias that prevented me from looking at the top of the top.
I was frustrated, constantly, endlessly frustrated at the disparity between where I was and where I wanted to be.
No matter who I listened to, the information I read didn't stick. I couldn't apply it to my life and I just felt stuck and privately never getting anywhere.
Then I started asking questions and trusting people who had answers.
Eventually something clicked for me, something changed. I changed.
My pride broke. My Self-Bias. My feeling that I had knowledge, knowing.
You think that others operate more effectively because they are more intelligent or work harder, so they can use more complicated ways to get things done. You think that is the difference between you and them.
This belief has no basis in reality.
Effective people invest in finding the best ways of operation earlier on.
I found an easier way, once I found that the people at the top did the hard work for me so that I didn't have to. The life question strategy explains that way and how to access it.
I believed everything had to be difficult.
I stressed myself out trying to do things and build things, and I believed that everyone above me was smarter and more capable.
I believed I was a certain kind of person and that certain information applied to me. I would read books that “I” would read.
Then,
I understood a simple fact that changed my trajectory.
The people who are leveling up are on a road that becomes more easy the higher they go.
The higher you go, the easier it gets.
That means their work is becoming less complex, not more complex.
Chapter 3.5
"How do I ask questions if I can't trust my own answers?"
but one note on this,
The answers you get come from your background mind.
You develop your background mind by exposing yourself to the right knowledge. Then, your background mind absorbs, integrates that knowledge.
You don't have to consciously understand the information. You do not have to expend effort to learn it. All you have to do is expose it to your background mind so that it can pick it up.
That means this process is:
1. Find the people with good mental models,
2. Expose yourself to the thoughts of these people.
These people are not smarter, they are simpler.
Their background mind has gained simpler mental models that are allowing them to think more intelligently and clearly.
They did not come up with this information, they too gained these mental models from someone before them.
This is a no effort strategy.
[Above, I'm using mental models as a placeholder term to refer to thinking processes of your background mind.]
Chapter 4
The life question process: Take your one core question, then apply these two parts.
- Looking: At the Top
- Listening: Without Conclusion.
This results in:
Without Self-Bias, Learn from The Top of The Top.
I had a self-bias that prevented me from looking at the top of the top.
I was frustrated, constantly, endlessly frustrated at the disparity between where I was and where I wanted to be.
No matter who I listened to, the information I read didn't stick. I couldn't apply it to my life and I just felt stuck and privately never getting anywhere.
Then I started asking questions and trusting people who had answers.
Eventually something clicked for me, something changed. I changed.
My pride broke. My Self-Bias. My feeling that I had knowledge, knowing.
You think that others operate more effectively because they are more intelligent or work harder, so they can use more complicated ways to get things done. You think that is the difference between you and them.
This belief has no basis in reality.
Effective people invest in finding the best ways of operation earlier on.
I found an easier way, once I found that the people at the top did the hard work for me so that I didn't have to. The EZ Question explains that way and how to access it.
I believed everything had to be difficult.
I stressed myself out trying to do things and build things, and I believed that everyone above me was smarter and more capable.
I believed I was a certain kind of person and that certain information applied to me. I would read books that “I” would read.
Then,
I understood a simple fact that changed my trajectory.
The people who are leveling up are on a road that becomes more easy the higher they go.
The higher you go, the easier it gets.
That means their work is becoming less complex, not more complex.
Chapter 5
What is Deeper? What is Universal? Why?
Everything, everything, everything relates to the question you are asking.
Everything relates to the questions you are asking.
Other ways of operation I've used are obsolete in comparison to this:
What is The Life Question?
The Life Question is a formula:
E + Z = Question.
What is the core question?
Is there a better question?
Understand this as an ultimate principle:
If You Ask A Question, You Will Receive The Answer.
Here is a question of questions, a question in relation to everything:
What Does it Mean to Be Human?
No one is asking this question. Ask this question, and everyone has a conclusion, as though it were a trivial question.
A conclusion is made, the question is not asked.
You cannot ask a question if you already have a conclusion.
Then, let Z represent: no conclusion.
E + Z = Question.
E = Everything.
Z = Wildcard [ No Conclusion.]
[And No Self-Bias.]
By Wildcard I mean, Open-Ended. Potential. Possibility.
Z is a placeholder. Undefined.
Z is a reminder that your question should have no pre-formed conclusion.
Chapter 5.5
Why doesn't the student learn if there is a disconnection?
There are two obvious ways to intend to receive an answer to a question.
1. You can intend to find out what you don't know.
2. You can intend to find what you know.
most people who seek Buddha will pursue all the religion, do all the practices, hear all the teachings, get all the credentials, they will get right next to the very essence of Buddha, but they will not understand Buddha.
They've chosen the second option. They're trying to get to what they think Buddha is.
To understand him would now be difficult, they are now rich and would have to become poor. They would have to go back to the first step.
The road they are currently on cannot get them there,
because how they are trying to do it has not worked, and they keep trying what has not worked.
1. drop what they know, and
2. Set a new intention to connect to Buddha and listen to him as though for the first time.
For many years I have pondered that this is the true meaning of humility, the difference between:
1. Intending to find out what you don't know.
2. Intending to find what you already know.
When things are stuck and not working, you know that you are using option 2.
Chapter 6
How Do I Ask Better Questions?
And Why Should I?
I found the answers to these in two places.
The first is the comprehension that intuition can be better than it is right now if it is exposed to and integrates better conceptual models.
If you become exposed to certain information, you become permanently smarter than you are now, forever affecting how you operate afterward.
The Trajectory of Your Life Changes, Permanently.
The second, is the means to do that. That is, new mental models.
Chapter 7
Looking and Listening:
Looking and Listening describes an ultimate formula.
This is the objective way to learning:
Without self-bias, learn from the top of the top.
Take the core question, and apply the Life Question, composed of two parts.
- Looking.
- Listening.
Chapter 7
Looking
- Look at who is at the top.
- Look at who is above the top,
Let's say you watch a YouTube video of a teacher you're learning from.
Who are they learning from?
See if you can learn from who they are learning from.
A speaker will ALWAYS disclose who they learned from. There is more to identify this later in this series.
A perhaps too obvious example is here:
You're never going to become your aspiration by learning from a person, you remain their "customer". You can learn from their best, but you don't become them, which means that having what they have remains a dream. Everyone is reaching up to something, someone.
If you wanted to be on their path, you'd need to be reaching to what they reached to. They have teachers, too.
Do they have a big house? The car you dream of? The relationships? The version of themselves you admire? They attained these from learning from their teachers. You can shortcut by skipping to them.
What if the teacher they disclose is a historical figure?
In this case, that's only an inspiration. More information is needed to truly learn than this.
The best you can do in this case is research and study that figure
and see if the person you're inspired by has any teachings about what they get from that figure.
“At the age of six I wanted to be Napoleon–and I wasn’t. At the age of fifteen I wanted to be Dalí and I have been. At the age of twenty-five I wanted to become the most sensational painter in the world and I achieved it. At thirty-five I wanted to affirm my life by success and I attained it. Now at forty-five I want to paint a masterpiece and to save Modern Art from chaos and laziness. I will succeed!” - Dali
Dali did not choose the same vocation as Napoleon.
Napoleon may be too abstract a figure to learn from,
But, you can still expose yourself to the mind of Napoleon, and ask what Dali got from him.
In other cases, look at the father figures of your role models.
Why use Looking?
Looking not only involves the Top of the Top,
it also involves only:
- the best of the top,
- and greater still,
the result of all of those tops combined.
Recognize that what your inspirations and the people above you do is they’ve done the hard work for you.
They have already refined and concisely consolidated the core concepts of their father figure so that you don’t have to parse those out yourself.
If you understand how they have already done the work of giving you the best of the best,
how that continues down lineages through history, you will understand how you can gain better information in a shorter amount of time than those who came before you because they've done that work for you.
Getting the result of all the tops combined:
Now, instead of spending 20 years studying one great figure,
Now you can:
- 1. Spend 20 years learning from the very best of 20 great figures,
- 2. And become the total of the best of those minds.
Where Would You Choose To Go If You Were Able To Teleport Into Any Life You Wanted?
If you were ever trying to escape your current life to get to the next one,
you may have experienced finding a teacher or celebrity promising you results, then having hope that learning from them will grant you what they offer, and watch that hope fade as you find you have remained the same.
You can use Looking Above The Top to shortcut this, skip the teacher and learn from their teacher.
As another example, most of your favorite YouTubers are looking up to one person; Mr. Beast.
Chapter 8
2: Listening
Z = [Wildcard] No Conclusion.
To explain listening, I will refine this quote down to its essence three times by breaking it down.
Why? A repetition of 3 helps you remember.
Listening = Confide Yourself Childlike To The Genius of Your Age.
If you want to be a great person, Listen.
If you want to be a great person, place your mind before the person you want to become, as if your mind was a newborn baby that knew nothing and thought nothing.
This is what it takes. If you want the optimal results:
- Choose who you want to become.
- Humble yourself before that person.
- And Listen.
"Great men have confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age." - Self-Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Consider the cost.
Humility is the cost. You pay the cost of your pride. That is the cost. Your pride is the cost.
Your Delusional Self-Bias is the cost.
You have to put down your delusional self-bias to Listen.
If you do not pay this cost, then you pay the cost of your optimal results.
Humility to the Great is another way to say,
Become the Formless, Shapeless, Perfect Student,
to maximize the amount you can learn and level up to where another is.
Everything you bring to the table will only hold you back.
But learn the fundamentals first, learn the timeless principles first. Take everything for free.
Then, set out on your journey as The Fool.
Then, if it is your desire, play by whatever rules you want and create your own games. Your mileage may vary.
But first, be the fool in a different way.
Be the fool as the childlike student.
Z = No Conclusion - A Great Person Confides Themselves Childlike to the Genius of Their Age.
Who Would You Become If You Were Able To Craft Yourself From A Formless Image?
Who Would You Embody?
Which Inspiration Would You Aspire To?
If You Walked Up To A Magic Door
That Could Teleport You Into Another You,
Where Would You Point It To?
What's stopping you from being that character right now?
If you're afraid of falling behind, of ending up where you fear ending up,
why not assume a new way of being from this moment on?
Your thoughts always provide negative commentary from the past, they are just noise. Just as a person tells you that you cannot do something and know that you can,
your thoughts provide a negative commentary about what you can't do, but this noise does not stop you.
Chapter 9
E + Z = Question:
E = The question that revolves around everything, around you. All other questions revolve around it.
Revolve your life, your business, your thoughts around that question.
That question is your center.
Why? Because a center is simple.
And because if you ask, you get.
Z = No Conclusion: A Great Person Confides Themselves Childlike to the Genius of Their Age.
E + Z = Your Center.
Your Everything Question + No Conclusion = Your Center.
Looking At the Top. Listening Without Conclusion.
Without Self-Bias, Learn from The Top of The Top.
Why E + Z = Question?
Because The EZ Question is a simple process.
the greater the error in the model.
More complexity actually gives you a worse answer."
- Naval.
Adding more complexity to a decision making process gives you greater error.
More complexity gives worse results.
The process is simple. Simple does not mean easy. Learning is not an effortless road.
Learning is the investment for your life–and how you level up faster than your competition.
The Meta-Concepts here:
1. Center What You Do.
Don't be split. Don't be divided. Don't think linearly.
Think about your target as the center of a circle.
Revolve everything around a single center.
Expand out from the center.
Connect everything to your single point.
2. The Real Point is You.
Revolve what you do around you,
your authenticity, your real.
3. Life Answers All Questions.
Understand this as an ultimate principle:
If You Ask A Question, You Will Receive The Answer.
Your consciousness is a problem-solving machine. Your consciousness, your dreams, your external reality begins to solve any question you ask it.
Prioritize Finding the Answer to Your Question and You Will Have Results.
Ask a Question of Questions. Center on That Question.
What is Meaningful?
I was asking a question that was something like,
what is the question of all questions, a question all other questions converge into?
This became the question, "What Does It Mean To Be Human?"
Life soon answered me with George Gurdjieff, who asked a similar question with the same intention.
He would say, "You must have an aim, a serious aim. And you must establish a relationship between your task and your aim, an aim you cannot forget."
Gurdjieff would say that his father, "had a simple, clear and definite view on the aim of human life. He told me many times in my youth that the fundamental striving of every person should be to create for themselves an inner freedom towards life and to prepare for themselves a happy old age."
He would go on to say, “Ever since I was a child, I had the feeling that there something is missing in me. I felt that apart from my ordinary life. There is another life, a life which is calling me. But how to be open to it? This question never gives me any peace, and I have become like a hungry dog, chasing everywhere for an answer…I want to learn. I want to understand.”
Gurdjieff would ask the question that would lead to becoming conscious,
a question something like, "I want to know why I'm here.
There's a group of us all shattered by this question. Nothing will stop us until we find an answer." - Meetings With Remarkable Men
“The question is always: Who am I? You see, if I were allowed one single cry to God, that cry would be: I want to be REAL.”
Years later, Gurdjieff put the title on the 3rd Series of his All and Everything: “Life is Real Only Then When I Am.” - GurdjieffHawaii.org
Has anything unexplainable ever happened to you?
Was there ever a time in your life that you had a realization, and it seemed your life suddenly moved into a completely different track?
What would it be like if you could ask a question and life answered your question for you?
What would it be like if all the parts of your life aligned into one direction towards your dream?
Would it be worth it to set this as your priority?
What would it cost? What would be the cost of not doing that?
The Life Question:
Ask a Question of Questions. Center on That Question.
If you have a center question, you can have a focus. If you have a focus, you can revolve your life around solving one problem.
Could There Be A Question My Life Revolves Around?
If I don't know, how can I find out?
Chapter 10
Case Study: NAVAL RAVIKANT
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Entrepreneur and Investor. Naval is founder of Angellist, Epinions, and Vast.com. He is an Angel investor in Twitter, Uber, Yammer, and 100+ more. Naval has become widely followed for his thoughts on startups, investing, crypto, wealth, and happiness.
Naval has for decades been the authoritative voice of the Twitter-sphere.
If I look at a person and wish to deconstruct them, I first ask,
What is the highest truth or wisdom that this person thinks?
So, I found that Naval says,
“My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of action on a personal domain, and then making a decision to capitalize on that.”
With this statement, I can draw two questions to set as center focuses:
How Can I Learn To Know The Long-Term Effects Of My Actions?
How Can I Learn To Make A Decision To Capitalize On That?
With these questions, there is now a problem to solve.
With a problem to solve, the mind can work as intended to find a solution.
Notice how simple this process is:
Question Process = Problem —> Solution.
“If you add more complexity to a decision making process..there is greater error in your process.
More complexity actually gives you a worse answer.”
Even in this writing, you should examine everything."
The mind‘s system is not complex. The mind’s system is designed to solve a single focus, a single problem.
Increasing complexity decreases efficiency, because then your mind is not being used in the way it is designed.
Solving a problem gives a person a sense of purpose. This is why all successful people are solving problems for the world.
Everyone tries to solve problems for this sense of purpose, it is only that they are usually small problems.
What is a problem in your life you could solve for a greater purpose?
So let’s take Naval’s questions into one easy Question,
How Can I Know The Long-Term Effect Of My Action And Make a Decision Based On That Information?
Chapter 11
How Can I Know The Long-Term Effect Of My Action And Make a Decision Based On That Information?
The solution to this may not be in the form of direct actions, but may first require meta-concepts:
The stance, the perspective, the frame, the state to approach the problem.
It may require having a mind that can perform this feat.
So, does Naval have the answer to this for himself? If he does, and this is his favorite question, then it is likely that his favorite information involves the answer to that question.
If you remember the thinking model presented in this series,
Without Bias, Choose The Best of The Best.
The person is already selected, now,
What is The Best of Their Best?
How can you know?
You can know because a person is quick to tell you. A person tells the world of their favorite things.
Naval's Best of the Best:
What's Naval's favorite tweet?
With a little bit of digging, one can find it here.
How Do You Know?
A person is quick to tell you.
--Out of these 3, I will center on: A Calm Mind.
It means that this is the thought he returns to again and again.
If Naval’s goal is success, than this focus is what he sees as the answer for becoming successful in his way.
This is easily reverse-engineered in part III.
In Short,
A Person's Best of Their Best Is The Idea They Return To Again And Again.
If You Find The Best of Their Best, You Can Know What Causes Their Results.
Chapter 11.5
Questions For Reflection
How does your day go when you are stuck in a negative perspective?
What are the outcomes of your future if you remained in that perspective?
What is the best of your best?
How do you feel when you engage in life with this perspective?
What was a time in your life where you felt truly valuable, when you felt like your gifts and abilities were seen by others?
Can you remember your favorite moment of accomplishment in this life?
Perhaps a time where you helped someone, maybe even a time you pulled someone out of a crisis, or perhaps gave support to a person younger than you?
Can you remember a time when you did something that seemed superhuman, even impossible? What was that like?
What times in your life did you experience a calm internal mental state?
How would your daily experience change if you approached it from a calm mind? What kind of clarity would you have?
What options could open up to you if you could see a clear vision of your future?
What is the future cost of setting an intention to move forward with a clear perspective as your priority?
What is the future cost of not?
What would your life be like if you lived from the mindset of the best perspective you know?
Can you remember a famous person or celebrity who h talked about consistently remembering their wins?
Easy Questions:
What Is The Best Of My Inspiration's Best?
What Is The Best of My Best?
What Is Better Than The Best of My Best?
Chapter 12
Let’s Easily Reverse-Engineer This:
Problem: How Can I Know The Long-Term Effect Of My Action And Make a Decision Based On That Information?
Solution: By developing a calm mind.
Why Would Developing A Calm Mind Be The Solution To Seeing Long-Term Effects?
You can approach this question from a top or bottom angle.
From The Top:
The more calm the mind,
the more clearly one will be able to look at actions and their effects.
From The Bottom:
Using Munger’s Inverse Thinking:
How could I absolutely ensure that I cannot know the long term effects of my actions?
One can achieve this by developing the most clouded and agitated mind possible. This will ensure that it will be impossible to observe actions and effects.
If one like Naval looks at his future:
The more time of his life spent in a mind that is not calm,
The more suboptimal the results of his future will be.
The longer the wait to solve this issue as the priority problem,
the results of your life will be less optimal than they would have been if you had addressed this problem first.
Every day spent with the problem unsolved is leading to a suboptimal future.
Why?
The decisions that effect the future outcome were made from a mind that could not see the long-term effects of those decisions.
The Cost:
It is hard to see the cost of invisible factors that cause outcomes.
However, you can observe costs in this way with this paraphrased insight from Alex Hormozi:
If you are making $50,000 a year,
Not knowing how to make $1,000,000 a year is costing you:
$950,000 a year.
Not having that information is costing you $950,000 a year.
In this same way,
you can calculate the cost of not developing a calm mind.
To do this, you compare two scenarios.
How Would The Next 20 Years Of My Life Turn Out If I Made All Of My Decisions From An Unclear Mind?
How Would The Next 20 Years Of My Life Turn Out If I Made All Of My Decisions From A Clear Mind?
Once the cost of not solving this problem is recognized, the problem to solve is simple:
How Do I Get A Calm Mind,
A Calm Internal Mental State?
After asking this question, the mind asks,
"How hard is it to get a calm mind?"
What the mind is really asking is,
"How much does it cost me to get a calm mind and do I want to pay that cost?"
If you have taken the future into consideration,
the cost of:
Not Knowing How To Have A Calm Mind
is incalculably higher than whatever the cost of Knowing may be.
The mind then asks,
"What is a Calm Mind?"
"Have I Already Had A Calm Mind Before?"
"Is It Possible To Always Have A Calm Mind?"
"What Does A Calm Mind Mean?"
These are questions that one can take to begin a search.
It doesn't matter what your qualifications are, or who you think you are, or how you think you are,
all it takes is establishing this pursuit as the priority, as the goal.
You Can Do This Because:
The odds are against you. The distractions around you make it difficult to focus. The mind is untrained and like monkeys swinging on vines.
There are negative labels you've agreed with about what your mind can do and what you're capable of.
But it is possible.
Even if your own thoughts don't agree,
You can act despite your own thoughts.
You, personally, you, specifically, you,
can master your own mind.
Why?
Because Your Mind Is More Powerful Than Your Thoughts Think It Is.
When the priority has been established as the focus, one can search for a solution.
As is the claim of this series, if you ask a question you will get the solution.
Start = Question.
End = Solution.
The Beginning Is The End.
The Starting Point Determines The End Point.
Start = End.
Question = Solution.
In simple terms,
Pursuing The Right Question Is What Leads You To The Right Goal.
Why Does This Matter?
"But HOW do I do that?"
This Is How.
- You establish the target in your mind,
- You set an intention that the target is priority so that your mind knows that it is the target,
- You begin asking questions and looking for solutions.
Easy Questions:
What Is It I Want?
What Question Can I Ask To Pursue What I Want?
Chapter 13
How To Identify A Top Inspiration
Pay close attention because it’s always subtle.
There are the books Naval recommends, but then there is always the book that influenced the person.
It’s easy to miss because the person never says, "Go read this book, it made me successful." It’s always in the context of them looking back, reflecting on their life.
“When I was young and kind of studying up on the topic, one of my favorite books on the subject was 'How to Get Rich' by Felix Dennis, the founder of Maxim magazine. He had a lot of crazy stuff in there, but he had some good insights too. Whenever I read something by him or by the GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons or Andrew Carnegie…” - Naval
That’s three name drops of influencers. The first one, of course, the favorite, was the inspiration, Felix Denis.
This is what the strategy of the Easy Question is about. It’s about paying attention to these major influences.
I listened to these top minds for years, but when they mentioned a book or influence, the thought to read that book never crossed my mind.
If it had crossed my mind, and it didn’t, I would have thought, “Well, that’s cool for them.”
Countless.
Examples:
- Osho read Gurdjieff.
- Jordan Peterson read Dostoevsky.
- Sigmund Freud read Edward Young.
- Neville Goddard read Florence Scovel Shinn.
- David Bowie read Heinrich Harrer:
"David was enthralled by Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer’s memoir. It gave an outsider’s eye view of the land before it was invaded by the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army. It would add a political dimension to David’s deepening absorption.
A book called The Lampa Story, written by a man from Devon who claimed his body hosted the spirit of a Tibetan lama, was another early influence.”
A well known example:
"The roots of Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitions can be traced back to the cover of a bodybuilding magazine and a Yorkshireman named Reg Park."
Master Yoda said,
“"Always two, there are. No more. No less.
A Master and an apprentice."
Behind anyone who has done anything, there is always an inspiration.
In this strategy, you’re not looking for the book that made the person successful. They made themselves successful. You’re looking for their inspiration.
Sometimes, the core influence became a direction the person went in.
In David Bowie's case, he was exposed to high level Buddhist teaching at 16 years old after his influence led him to pursue a Tibetan lama.
Sometimes, it's an action the person was advised to take.
The same action is repeatable to get the same result.
In Chris Voss' case, a top FBI hostage negotiator, he was advised from a person at the top to volunteer at a suicide hotline for 6 months to build empathy and skill. And he did that.
Effortless. You'll spot it whenever you hear anyone speak.
These are some of my favorite inspirations:
- Wisdom - Solomon
- Artist’s Heart - King David
- Love - Jesus Christ
- Simplicity - Lao Tzu
- Courage - Naruto Uzumaki
- Will - Eren Yaeger - Attack on Titan
- Genius - Dionysus
- Self - George Gurdjieff
- Character - Tyler Durden
- Creativity - Salvador Dali
- Trust - Osho
- Vision - Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Wild Card - "Joker" - Persona 5
Who Are Yours?
Chapter 14
An Easy Question,
Who Would I Be If There Were No Other Outside Voices Or Influences?
All of reality, all of existence, conforms around the question you ask.
--As an ultimate law of existence.
Forget goals, forget purpose, look at questions. All of reality conforms around you to answer your question. All the information that comes to you, your dreams, your conversations, your events, your outcomes, they all conform to your question.
It appears from my vantage point that all of reality, all of my existence, all of my life has conformed around me coming to this single point, this single thesis that all of reality conforms around the question you ask.
It was always here, it was in my art project in 2020 but I did not yet see it.
The Project: LightDark.art.
My consciousness made this thesis in 2020 and it took 3 years for it to surface into my waking consciousness.
Great teachers teach you to destroy all of your beliefs and conclusions.
But Why?
No one answers why.
Why is a very deep answer. Why is because:
Relationships are deeper than beliefs and conclusions.
Relationships are an understanding and intimacy that take place deeper than the surface level mind.
Chapter 15
A Question Does Not Need A Definitive Answer.
The Best Questions Do Not Have Answers.
What?
How Can You Search For A Question That Has No Answer?
The only answer in words that I can give is: You can, and doing so can get you to a place you didn't know you could go.
1 2 3 Takeaway: E + Z = Question:
- Life will not answer questions you do not ask.
- If you search for the answer to a question, you will have results.
- You can reach your goal–as an absolute certainty–if you set your goal as: the answer to a question.
How do I solve X problem for the world?
We as humans are designed for this.
The biggest question I get asked is,
"But What If I Cannot Trust My Own Answers?"
This is a great question. Like most great questions, the answer is in the question.
The answer is, you need to learn to trust your own answers.
This answer leads to the next essential question:
How Do I Learn To Trust My Own Answers?
This question is a fundamental, existential question that affects the outcome of your entire life, in a world that you cannot understand or control.
How Do I Learn To Trust My Own Answers?
You close your eyes, you ask this question, you listen for an answer.
Ask it every day if you must, set it as a priority,
as if you would fall off of a cliff to your death if you did not find out how.
Search, and search, and life will give you the answers to the questions you ask, by law.
I do mean that life will literally bring you the answers, in the real world.
I will include a PNG copy of The Key that you can use for this below.
Who Would I Be If There Were No Outside Voices Or Influences?
What would you wish for if you had finished all that you had ever set out to do?
What is the thing you've been putting off until the right time?
What would be the cost of the sacrifice needed to make that happen?
What would be the cost of putting it off?
What would happen if you started executing on that today?
What's Next?
The Centering of The Center.
Thank you for reading! - Tyler Choice
