The Discipline of Perception (The Obstacle is the Way)

The Difference Between Observing and Perceiving

Musashi, swordsman and author of The Book of Five Rings notes the difference between observing and perceiving. The perceiving eye is weak, but the observing eye is strong. The observing eyes sees simply what is there, while the perceiving eye sees more than there is. The observing eye sees events, clear of distractions and exaggerations. The perceiving eye sees major setbacks and obstacles that cannot be surmounted.

Changing the Perception of Others

The philosopher Kierkegaard did not try to convince people from a position of authority. He didn’t lecture but used “indirect communication.” He would write under pseudonyms, where each fake personality would embody a different perspective, writing many times on the same subject from different angles. He would not tell his reader to “do this” or “think that” but would show new ways of understanding the world.

If you want to convince people by challenging their oldest held opinions, you will fail. You need to find common ground and move from there, or seek leverage, or create an alternative with overwhelming social support. What works is not always the most impressive, it may feel like a shortcut, or that you’re fighting unfairly. But it is not cheating. In this way, you are being strategic and economical.

Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper and aspiring investor becoming an oilman. His father was an alcoholic criminal. And in the Panic of 1857, when Rockefeller was still a teenager, the country went through a crippling depression. This was enough to scare Rockefeller, but he had an unflappable coolness under pressure. He kept his head while everyone else lost theirs.

He closely observed and learned from what had happened in the market and he internalized an important lesson: the market was inherently unpredictable and vicious. Speculation led to disaster, it was very important to ignore the mad crowd and its tendencies.

At 25, a group of investors offered to invest $500,000 in Rockefeller’s efforts to find the right oil wells. He was grateful for the opportunity, but a few day later, after touring the nearby oil fields, he shocked his backers by telling them that he had not invested a dollar of the funds. The opportunity did not feel right, no matter how excited the rest of the market was. He refunded the money and walked away.

It was his intense discipline and objectivity that allowed him to take advantage of each obstacle he encountered, during the civil war, the panics of 1873, 1907, and 1929. As he put it, he saw an opportunity in every disaster. Within 20 years of the first crisis, Rockefeller would control 90 percent of the oil market. His greedy competitors perished and his nervous colleagues sold their shares and left the business.

The insight of Rockefeller lives on in the famous Warren Buffet saying “be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”

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