Thedutylife's Podcast

How to avoid The Mistake of Using Hindsight as foresight? Hey buddy, its Jerome- have you ever have some of these challenges: You attend expensive programs, seminars, webinars which promise meaningful outcome-which turn out not to deliver- the expected results especially when you implemented the nuts and bolts, you work hard – you took continuously take risk over and over nothing work and at worst you go bankrupt or you hear and see people who? Me too “Me too- I also went through that-when I started my new entrepreneurial and investment journey. I read books ……well narrated ………………. I went broke not because I did not know what I was doing but because did not know what I did not know.  let me give you the framework of how to think about avoiding at looking in the review mirror – with the firm conviction we are looking ahead, hence using hindsight as  foresight that will allow save you by avoid tones of psychological, mental, relational and money pitfalls, worries and anxiety and most importantly generate the go

    How Do You Avoid using the wrong Maps? Those days you get disappointed, you get bog down, you get sad – you get angry, people make fun of you – you feel your sense of serenity and enthusiasm going down. How do you turn it around?   If you went from expensive courses to courses, attended webinars- seminars and most important put all the prescribe recommendations into practice by creating courses nobody buy, put videos on YouTube nobody watch them. Create blog nobody read and hosting podcasts no one is interested. Basically     nothing works. We must learn how to stop using the wrong Maps. How that is what this episode is all about.   The first thing you have to be aware of since you are pursuing big Mission and purpose is: the notion of iatrogenic” is harm done by the healer to the patience – in another word iatrogenic is medicine of a decease, injury or a bad outcome- caused by the words or action of the physician.”. Yes, we are living in a fast pace world today. Since the world has become more complex du

  Why the needle comes in an increasingly larger haystack?   Consider the following experiment a company X own by John release a new product/service to the public and since the product is organic-the expected success of the service turn out to be an unexpected shamble. t     Well what went wrong? Well John contact a consultant and precisely a data analyst or you want a top-notch marketer to figure out the cause of your decadence a la French accent. Well he/she makes you an offer you cannot refuse and you end up hiring him. After 48 hours of intensive work,He comes out with final conclusion that 1-You did not have a large list to be able to capitalize on 2-Your sale copy wasn’t compelling and therefore not well crafted 3-your product/service is more a commodity as consequence not different from others outhere We tend to conflate the source of risk which by the way is very hard to compute and your exposure. Example: Key in point. Case of the last truck that pass on the bridge and the bridge collapses. Well our

Well consider the following practical experiment you may have went through several times. For the last 5 years Donald who is an entrepreneur or an aspiring business owner/investor you name it, has being attending high promising business programs and mega summits worth at least 5000 dollars each. Now guess what? In practical terms his Business and life has not evolved for the better. Donald start to wonder what is wrong with himself? Be careful Donald is a practical person meaning a doer and make sure to follow the guidelines prescribed by the predictors.      Well while surfing the net Donald accidentally discovers the blog of a website call optionalityprofits.com.    Surprisingly he immerses himself in the in this blog and realize. The problem wasn’t him- but the way he framed his question. But before we that, let dig in these amazing eye-opener and profound findings:   Indeed in 2005 Prf John Ioannidis one of the world renown professional researcher in statistics proved in front of ASA – that 80% of epidemi

Till 2016 compete looks immune to the upheaval meaning the sudden violent change. The same team on the head of the company has run comfortably the company over a decade. Many pundits argued that compete sturdy police system which exercise tight control on its mailing list of customers, would survive the chaos and turmoil of the world due to the complexity of the era we living in undisturbed.     By the way the rise of complexity is due to globalization and internet characterize by a high increase of unpredictability and a drastic decrease of predictability    Compared with semrush.com, another web giant specialized a powerful and versatile competitive intelligence suite for online marketing, from SEO and PPC to social media and video advertising research for marketers. Compete looked positively stable, but this appearance were deceiving and were an illusion; Today compete is in cemetery – yes you hear it right in a graveyard- As of December 31, 2016, Compete.com and the Compete PRO platform have been shut dow

The "Evidence Based" Approach is often the Province of Statistically Pseudo-Experts incapable of grasping Absence of Evidence Absence of Evidence Consider the  following experiment- John is founder of a hilgly successful web analytic website- and have as baseline 15.000.000 active members as entrpreneurs- aspiring entrepreurs,investors,decision makers  – who are using his services. Year one john’s membership web analytic is doing very well- year two the financial heath of the company has shifted from good to better-year three,the profitaility of the company is oustanding.   John travel the world and gives seminar about how magnificent and grandiose his company is doing  until y year 5or 6 or  ,you name it: and then all of of sudden on the 7th year John’s webanalytic company  faces a surprise downturn.Only after the facts (when wipeout and out of business),john seem to understand that he was conflating  Emergency room for cosmetic surgery- when in reality he was sitting on a ticking time bomb.    Now john here

Evolution is scalable: the DNA that wins (whether by luck or survival advantage) will reproduce itself, like a bestselling book or a successful record, and become pervasive, widespread and general. Other DNA will vanish. Let me give you 3 practical examples that shows in a nutshell what I mean: First example, take google control more than 80% of traffic online Microsoft control more than 80% of PC, LAPTOPS and other device produce out there ,Facebook, twitter are the behemoth of social media with close to 90% of the lion share This by the way Is the reason why I always say – history is written by the winners, the visible, the salient Second example: Take a marketer or a consultant who launches an online course, with 100 000 people on his/her list as base line. At the end of the course the expert will take performance of the top 10 or 20   are now very successful which here is called the survivorship bias- the rest will end up in the graveyard.    Third Example: In the arts—say the cinema—things are far more v

When lightening hit, we do not change the laws of nature Welcome to extremistan or the Non linear/or the complex Domain Since the world has become increasingly more unpredictable, due to globalization and internet-we are witnessing the following problems- which pervade across board.  The difference between anecdote and evidence The difference between knowledge and BS The difference between an observation that is fake check and something you can generalise   How do you know something is safe, a turkey is fed for 1000 days by a butcher and everyday confirms to the turkey statistic department, the turkey accounting department, the turkey membership site, marketing department, Federal reserve Department– that the butcher loves the turkey with increasing statistical evidence until November, two days before thanks giving, It is never a good idea to be a turkey. The turkey will get a big surprise (the unexpected, the random) by becoming dead meat. This is by the way is in nutshell – the illustration of the consequen

Life isn't about getting predictions "right"; it is about knowing how to navigate the environment and controlling it.How?    False causality       Consider the following surprising headline:” The employee motivation leads to higher corporate profits.” What about maybe people are only motivated because the company is doing well or what about highly motivated workers working in business doing poorly?      Another one. What about female advertising cosmetic and thus many female consumers believe firmly that these products make you beautiful. Well what about those who do not use cosmetic and crown beauty queens? All what I am saying is – it is not these products that make you beautiful. Quite, simple models are born attractive and only for this reason – they are candidate fo         r cosmetic advertising. Hence beauty is a factor for selection and not result. This is a second example of false causality.   By the way without this illusion, half of advertising campaigns would not work     Among many traits that mu

Why we are lot good at doing than knowing? If you are professor at Harvard expert specialise in a given field. Your errors of predictions on the subject of what is going to happen -will be way higher than the one a semi ignorant. In another if you can only read and write ,your errors are inferior to someone who is specialise in the subject. Let me give another example:If you give 50 piece of information of a patient to a psychologist and later 10 piece of iformation on the same patient.His diagnosis with 10 piece of infos will be better than with 50 piece. Which proves we don’t know to work with infos. Now why Why? It is a technical problems: Let me explain why.if I show a blurr picture of a dog and increase the resolution of the lens by 10,you won’t be able to see the dog- because you will produce 9 or 8 theories. Now if I increase the resolution of the lens only by 3,you will see the dog immediately-yes right away. Conclusion: The more data you have- the more theory you will create. The more theories you

Let me give a metaphor; If I leave a small piece of ice cube on the floor and ask you to predict how the ice cube will melt. It is very simple answer to be predicted. Now if I recommend you, condition of not having seen initially the ice cube and you ask where is the water on the floor coming from? Please stop to listen and provide the relevant answer .You see it is extremely very difficult to give the accurate answer? Why because you will come up with answers of different shapes. It is exactly like going from theory to practice is extremely difficult than from practice to theory. Therefore given something you observe, the generator of the of the observable will be a theory- you have an infinity of theory.Particulary when you are dealing non linearity with Hence theory is born from practice. Most experts retrofit the story.  Phenomelogy- optionality which are anticipatory than backward fitting. Which why the first Program Business Robust strategic will be release not at the beginning of February but by 31/1/2

When we look at even, we tend to look at causes that are visible to us, we don’t look at the cemetery, meaning the things that are not obvious and salient to us. Yes history tend to kill a lot of information that was not deemed relevant at the time. Just as if you want know the causes to become multimillionaire –you will hear beautifully well-crafted and compelling words of self-appointed consultants and experts, data scientists purport that risk taking and working hard are necessary. After all, almost all rich people took risk and work hard. But it doesn’t mean that taking risk and working hard make you successful unless if you take the cemetery of bankrupt people and force them to write their biography, you will discover that that they share the same traits. Therefore Taking risk and working hard are necessary to become rich and also a source to become bankrupt. And you only see the winners, not the losers- hence Hence History is written by the winners not by the losers The answer here is simple and easy.

Let us talk about data analytic namely let us talk today about unpredictability by following the logical steps First do you believe that you can use data to predict systematically what is going on? Please write your answer down. Second question. Are you aware of something we call world of finance or Wall Street? Third question. How many correlation metrics or data do we have in 2007 before the financial crises? How large it was or how big it was? Answer: Between half a billion and a Billion correlation we had in finance .Guess what/Nobody knew what the hell was going out there and most importantly the pundits and experts. So as direct conclusion data is not what we needed or wanted .Just as a good friend of mine who is actually a mentor went to Washington to testify against spending more money on data – since we get confuse by data. The congressman told him – Sir John when you cross the street you don’t look When I cross the street I remove data- because you have billions of information, all what I am interes

Let me clarify the main idea behind what scientists call hedonic treadmill.         Making $1 million in one year, but nothing in the preceding nine, does not bring the same pleasure as having the total evenly distributed over the same period, that is, $100,000 every year for ten years in a row. The same applies to the inverse order—making a bundle the first year, then nothing for the remaining period.   Your happiness depends far more on the number of instances of positive feelings, what psychologists call "positive affect," than on their intensity when they hit. Mother Nature destined us to derive enjoyment from a steady flow of Pleasant small, but frequent, rewards. As I said, the rewards do not have to be large, just frequent—a little bit here, a little bit there.           Sadly, it may be even worse for you to make $10 million, then lose back nine, than to making nothing at all! True, you may end up with a million (as compared to nothing), but it may be better had you got zero.(This assumes, of course,

For Millennia, Europeans thought that all swan were white- because everywhere they looked, swans were always white. Till In year 1697 the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh saw a black swan in Australia and sure enough one single observation can destroy millennia of confirmation – likewise Take the story of the Turkey “For those of you who haven listen or watch, I hugely recommend you as soon as possible to give it a try. If you are employee and after 40 years, you are lay off the street. You have a negative black swan- you have the Tsunami of 2003 in east Asia. Another negative Black swan. The black swan can also be positive: For example: Take the invention of the computer. The internet which by the way was previously a military application is to use as a mean for communicate and business purposes. Consider the Viagra came from the hypertension drug.Aspirine made for headache, later it turns out to be fibber reducer and guess what today it is use as blood thinner. The black Swan is a way of saying,  Just beca

  How to Spot an Impostor or a Charlatan?                       In 1948 the psychologist Bertram Forer made an unusual and surprising experiment. First and foremost, he used astrology columns from a wide range of magazines. He then gave his pupils meaning his students to read and rate themselves after their own assessment.     Well here is the experiment. It may surprise you .Dear listener or watcher .I know you personally and here is the way I would characterise you. You greatly like to be appreciated and like by people. You have a propensity to self-critical with yourself. You have an enormous reservoir of unused capacity- which you have not mine yet to your advantage. You have some personality weaknesses, which you can generally overcompensate for them. From outside, you are self-controlled and self-disciplined. From the inside you are tend to worry and feel insecure. Sometimes you doubt whether you made the right the decision. You like change and become unsatisfied when hinder by obstacles. You like the f

If someone tries to trick you with "Evidence-based analysis", show him this story of the turkey  This Story of The Turkey     Consider the following story, borrows from Bertrand Russell and adapted by me    A turkey is fed for 1000 days by a butcher and everyday confirms to the turkey and turkey’s business’s paid membership site or offline- paid subscription’s site and offline, the turkey’s risk management department in a company, and the turkey’s analytic department in a business, the turkey’s statistic department of a company - that the butcher loves the turkey with increase statiscal evidence. And every day bring more confidence to the statement. But until 1001 days there something in the US call thanks giving, it is never a good idea to be a turkey that day .there is going to be a big surprise event or black swan of disastrous consequence for the turkey in another word the Turkey becomes death meat. What about the Butcher?Well I will give the answer at the end of this episode    This story proves in nutsh

      Why We Humans Feel the good less Intensely Than The Bad?     Loss Aversion I will build a wall on the border between Mexico and the US ,I will take all the jobs overseas and bring them back home.Does that ring a bell the promotor of these promises? Donald Trump .These disadvantages which are vastly consequential and powerful anchors to move people to action. (Obviously here in optionality profits.com we advocate that any offer muss be based on noble, ethical and full of integrity from our part- since we have skin in the game.)    Why are we wired to be moved by pain and act immediately to avoid it? Well base on our evolutionary past, one slight error would lead to exit the gene pool – meaning you were dead right away. So negligence could have lead on the hunt or a broken leg was sufficient to be excluded of the group, or left alone. The ones who were prudent and combine with good luck made it by surviving. We are the descendants of the ones who survive and transmitted their genes to us.      As vivid ex

“The Bozo Explosion In Your Organisation” Steve Jobs -The more you compare yourself to others, whether favorably or unfavorably, the worse off you will be. As one of my Podcast episode hit a large audience worldwide, a good friend of mine, hugely successful podcaster and venture capitalist asked me favour. One of his episode’s title, slightly similar to my actual most listened one, was on the way to become a blockbuster.so he was persuaded that, me  being interviewed by him was a necessary and prerequisite condition to boost his audience largely.        We all know- a fruitful and insightful interview combine with a forward in a book or even a testimonial, ultimately lead to a substantial result. Meaning people will either attend your podcast presentation-buy your book or enrol in one of your program.by the way I have given many interviews and most of them weren’t competitive to my episode’s title”……..”.    Well I ponder about the request of my dear friend. Why would I help an acquainting who actually is a co

Impostors’ prophets   Prediction illusion   After Donald trump got the nomination of Republican Party, a democrat to win the next presidency of the US by 9/11/2016 Ebola propagation to be worldwide by end 2016 After Brexit, EU likely to collapse No more food in 25 years from now, only pills to be swallowed Daily consultants, experts and media assail us with prediction but how credible and reliable are they? Well Philipp fetlock in his blockbuster, bestseller book: Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? Over a period of  decade meaning 10 years, investigated close to 28,361prediction from 284 self-appointed experts or if you want self-proclaimed professionals.    Surprise – surprise, the result of their accuracy turn out to, in year in the row to pure random coincidence. What is more striking is that – the semi illiterates were way better than the experts.     A pure most vivid example is the most recent one in the presidential election in the US. Guess what the republican nominee Donald