Why to write and read?


“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.”
—Enid Bagnold

"Good Writing is clear thinking made visible"-Bill Wheeler

Good writing makes the thinking clear, it removes all the dust from your thoughts and thinking.

Sometimes we think why people give their time to write the answers on Quora, give review of a product or write blogs. What they will get, why they write, what benefits they get and the same kind of questions.

Before starting my blog and before starting reading the books, I also think in the same way that why to waste time to write and think instead just read other people's blog and save the time and invest this time in other activities like chit chat on phone, chat on Whats App, watch and like photos of other virtual friends on social media, watch TV and the same kind of activities….

With the time, and with the improvement in my reading habit, I come to know that reading and writing is the best thing you can do to help other human beings to know more and to help yourself as well.

As Charlie Munger said:

The best thing a human being can do is to help another human being know more.

And how you can help the other human being to know more is by teaching or by guiding or by sharing your learning. In this post, I am going to share some of my learning on writing, why I started to write this blog, what I get by writing and similar king of questions. Please be with me and read the full post.

To learn anything better, write it down on a piece of paper. We may be too much modern, we may have any gadget but any gadget cannot replace a pan and a paper to learn anything in a proper way, if you don’t believe it just try it.

James Mangan said: 

To know it - write it! If you’re writing to explain, you’re explaining it to yourself! If you’re writing to inspire, you’re inspiring yourself! If you’re writing to record, you’re recording it on your own memory. How often you have written something down in order to be sure you would have a record of it, only to find that you never needed the written record because you had learned it by heart!”


To get more knowledgeable and get smarter you need to follow Charlie Munger. What Charlie Munger said on how to become smart is:

"If you want to get smart, the question you have to keep asking is “why, why, why, why?“

Some of your whys will be answered by reading books or blogs but most of the whys come to your mind while writing your thoughts or your learning on a piece of paper or on your blog and While writing you get many Whys to get answered, that will force you to read more books or blogs and write more. By doing this, you will be on the path of the worldly wisdom.

Now let see, what you get by writing a blog or a journal or your thoughts on a piece of paper.

1: A deep understanding of the subject:

when you read a book on a topic, you look for some questions to get answered by the author. And by reading the book, you get a deep understanding of the subject. In the book The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills author Dan Coyle writes

“Research shows that people who follow strategy B [read ten pages at once, then close the book and write a one-page summary] remember 50 percent more material over the long term than people who follow strategy A [read ten pages four times in a row and try to memorize them]. This is because of one of deep practice’s most fundamental rules: Learning is reaching. Passively reading a book—a relatively effortless process, letting the words wash over you like a warm bath—doesn’t put you in the sweet spot. Less reaching equals less learning.

On the other hand, closing the book and writing a summary forces you to figure out the key points (one set of reaches), process and organize those ideas so they make sense (more reaches), and write them on the page (still more reaches, along with repetition). The equation is always the same: More reaching equals more learning.”

Dan Coyle suggests us, how to read and get more from the book. He suggests, read a book like 10 pages and close the book and write your own thought on the learning from the book on a piece of paper. I do write the learning form the book on the marginalia or any place on the paper.

2: Answer of your Whys and get a reason to read more:

If you are looking to understand the world, why things happens, what are the reasons behind any event, the cause and the outcome, then you first need to understand that the world is a complex adaptive system and everything is relating to everything else in the world. It is a king of butter fly effect in action. Take an example of Stock market, a simple news of any continent on the planet, will impact the world's stock market.

To understand the bigger picture of the cause and outcome, read more books from different fields. Be a voracious reader like Charlie Munger.

Once you are curious to know something, then you get the best of your answers from the books only.

To become a wiser person, follow the advice from Charlie Munger:

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Day by day, and at the end of the day-if you live long enough-like most people, you will get out of life what you deserve.”

3: You get Happiness:

Reading and writing will bring happiness to your life. To get the happiness, lets reverse the argument and ask what is the root cause of the problems? 
Blaise pascal have the answer of this question. What Blaise Pascal said,

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” 

We don’t have a tendency to sit ideal if we don’t have anything to do, it’s a human nature. We always look for more of everything, and in order to get more, we end up with misery. 
My friend, remember Less is more.

If you start reading and writing in your free time, instead of seeking for more, you invest your time on nurturing your mind and soul. And someone who always nurture his mind and soul, will be always in inner peace.

Once everything will be settled inside the reflection obviously come outside.

4: you learn more:

By reading and writing you improve your learning. You know that what you need to learn and you know that how you can learn that. Just read lots of books on the subject then write it down in your own way or teach it to someone.

While you are on your learning path, don’t fool yourself. As Richard Feynman said:

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

By reading and writing, you come to know the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing that thing. AS Richard feynman said:

“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”

5: Your writing skills improve:

It is no doubt, your writing skills will improve with time, if you start reading and writing your own thoughts on the subject. You can see my improvement on this blog in last 6 to 7 months, read the first blog post of TheRandomWisdom blog and then read this blog post, you can find the difference.

Your improved writing skill help you to Convey your understanding and thoughts better to the other person. It will help you to grow at your work place as well.

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”



6: Your reading, observing and imagination skills will improve: 

While reading a good, you are in an argument on the subject with the author. You try to know why the author wrote whatever he had written, what the surrounding forces that force him to write. By this you understand the empathy, you are putting your leg in the writer's shoes and thinking like the author.

You understand the environment of the writer and the time period of the writer. You imagine the world in your mind and you start observing the things more closely.

After a point of time, this observation and imagination will help you to take better decisions in your life.

AS Alfred Whitney Griswold said:
“The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.” 
And the better ideas will come to you by reading only. 

7: Your thought and learning will be organized:  

To improve the quality of your life, you need be organized internally and externally. I have asked by many of my friends that they don’t get time and how I get the time of reading and writing while doing the same job as they do for their bread and butter. My reply to them only that organize your time and day properly- Organize yourself properly.

Your mind is a temple, so place the right attic at the right place in this temple. Apply the same logic to your life as well. Start adopting right habits, your quality of life will improve and you always get enough time to do the things that you always want to do. Erase the bad habits from your life like TV, Chit chat on mobile, Whats app, Social medial etc

The author of the Harry potter series J. K. Rowling said:
“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” 


8: Improve mood and reduce stress:

Due to entire day work pressure and the people at the work place and too much work, we get the stress. Writing and reading is the best therapy to get stress free mind and mood. Just try it, you will have amazed by the improvement.

On the relation of reading, writing and stress, Adam Grant said -
"Expressive writing has also been linked to improved mood, well-being, and reduced stress levels for those who do it regularly."

Research by Laura King shows that writing about achieving future goals and dreams can make people happier and healthier... And it is found that when people doing stressful fund raising jobs kept a journal for a few days about how their work made a difference, they increased their hourly effort by 29% over the next two weeks.

9: Improve your communication skills:

If you read more and write more, it is obvious that you mind is well wired on so many areas of the world, so when the time come to argue on any given topic, you perform better than a person who don’t read or write.

Mark Twain said:
The Man Who Does Not Read Has No Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read

In both emotional intelligence and in hard sciences like mathematics, writing has been shown to help people communicate highly complex ideas more effectively. 

Brian Tracy said: 
"Communication is a skill that you can learn. It's like riding a bicycle or typing. If you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life."



10: Help to handle tough times:

If you are a continuous reader of good books and a writer, you come to know that the leaders of the world have faced many tough situations in their life and your current situation is nothing in front of them.

In one study that followed recently fired engineers, the researchers found that those engineers who consistently engaged with expressive writing were able to find another job faster. 

Says Adam Grant:
“The engineers who wrote down their thoughts and feelings about losing their jobs reported feeling less anger and hostility toward their former employer. They also reported drinking less. Eight months later, less than 19% of the engineers in the control groups were reemployed full-time, compared with more than 52% of the engineers in the expressive writing group.”

There will be many more benefits of reading good books and writing your own blog or your own book or a journal.

  •      Brings positive to your life:

Study shows that the subjects who reflected on the good things in their life once a week by writing them down were more positive and motivated about their current situations and their futures.

  •      Improve your concentration:

Getting important ideas down alleviates the stress of losing your thoughts to time or an overcrowded mind.

  •      Improve your learning skill:

Information often sticks better when it’s learned as though it needs to be taught or re-written in your own words. This concept never fully clicked with me until I started writing regularly.

  •      You will communicate with clarity:

Unlike talking, when you write you look for more sophisticated words and expressions to describe what you have in mind. This helps you build a structure that will allow you to express yourself better and communicate complex ideas in a much more effective way.

  •      You will eliminate stress:  

you empty your mind - by capturing everything that comes to it—to eliminate the stress that causes having many things hitting your head, writing and developing your ideas produces an amplified effect since not only you take them out of your mind but also the whole process of rationalization that otherwise would abstractly stay in there.

  •      You will be more productive:  

Writing activates the neurons in your brain and gets it ready to overcome the rest of the tasks (you can use it as a kind of warm-up at the beginning of the day). In addition, writing down your tasks with the appropriate words prepares you to carry them out properly. Finally, it’s demonstrated that setting your goals in writing increases significantly the possibilities of achieving them.

  •      You will learn more:

Writing in your own words the information that you receive helps you assimilating and consolidating knowledge that otherwise you would forget soon.

  •       You will gain awareness of your reality:

If you write down what you have in mind each day, what you expect to achieve and how you feel according to this, you won’t need a psychologist to explain you who you are. You will realize yourself.

  •      You will make better decisions:

When writing you clear up your thoughts and, obviously, a clearer thinking allows you to make better choices.

  •      You will be happier:

It’s an immediate consequence of the two previous points. There is no need to write a public blog, a sort of personal journal is perfectly valid.

  •      You will live more focused:

If you constantly write about your thoughts you will never get out of sight what you want to achieve, which your dreams are.

  •      You will overcome tough moments faster:

There is some research that suggests that those that write about what is happening overcome tough moments quicker than those who don’t.

  •      You will have a lot of written memories:

If you write each day, you will have a historical record of your thoughts, probably something much more interesting than a simple photo album. And, who knows, maybe you end up publishing a book.

  •       Improve creativity:

To write good stuff, you need to thing and to thing good stuff you need to write and read, so it is a positive feedback loop and at the end you will get knowledge and skill.

  •       May be your make some money:

This is for the people who think of making money. By writing and reading you can make money as well. By writing good blog and good content, you can make money.

I will end this post with the beautiful quote :

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
—George Orwell


-Keep reading, Keep learning
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-Mahesh

48 laws of power

I recently read the book 48 laws of power by Robert Green and today's post is inspired by the learning from the book.It is a wonderful book and we all must read it. The book is full of worldly wisdom about the power rules and many examples from history and from different kingdoms of the world.what to do and what not to do?

It is a must read for everyone who is interested in learning and reading books.

I will share the learning suggested by the Robert green in the book 48 laws of power.



The 48 laws of power are:

Law 1 : NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER

 Always make those above you feel comfortably superior In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talent: or you might accomplish the opposite - inspire fear and insecurity. Make your masters appear more brilliant than they are and you will attain the heights of power. 
The author is suggesting that never try to show your mastery to your superior or your master. Let them feel that they are still superior than you. There is a saying "To live in Rome and fight with Pop". If you try to show your talent to your master, it will raise a feeling of insecurity inside them and they will use their power against you.

Law 2 : NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS, LEARN HOW TO USE ENEMIES 

Be wary  of  friends - they will betray you more quickly, for they are easily aroused to envy. They also become spoiled and tyrannical. But hire a former enemy and he will be more loyal than a friend, because he has more to prove. In-fact, you have more to fear from friends than from enemies. If you have no enemies, find a way to make them
The author intention is not that don't trust at all on any friend. We human being is a social animal and without friend there is no society. Trust but only those who are trust-able not all. Not all Social media friends are your actual friend right. If you want to test, Call some friends in an emergency and see how many will come for your help in the same case put a pic on social media, you may get 50 likes.

Len wein the American comic book writer said - "A true friend is someone who is there for you when he's rather be anywhere else."


LAW 3 : CONCEAL YOUR INTENTIONS

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelop them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late. 
 We can see two faces of the people in most of the cases in real life where people say something and act something different. You can take many examples for politics, from history.
While believing on someone, keep in mind- "You know what to expect of your enemies, but beware of your friends because their true intentions could still be hidden"

LAW 4 : ALWAYS SAY LESS THAN NECESSARY 

When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open—ended, and sphinx like. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.  
This law is the biggest learning for me from the book. this learning will save you from many life killing problems. Say less and say essential only. One more added point is learn to say NO.


LAW 5 : SO MUCH DEPENDS ON REPUTATION - GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE 

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win," once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable. Always be alert to potential attacks and thwart them before they happen. Meanwhile, learn to destroy your enemies by opening holes in their own reputations. Then stand aside and let public opinion hang them 

Remember "Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow". With reputation the power come. Your silly mistake or silly words will ruin your reputation, so us the law of power rule no 4 and talk only necessary.

LAW 6 : COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST 

Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing: Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. He conspicuous, at all cost. Make yourself a magnet of attention by appearing larger, more colorful more mysterious than the bland and timid masses.

LAW 7 : GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT 

Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own muse. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you a godlike aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you

This looks like a cunning attitude to take the credit of others work but this is the true reality of today's world. People don't want to do hard work but they want to take the credit. they want to show that the all and effort is don by them. You can see in almost in all area. You can see it in IT, In investing by looking for the free tips.


LAW 8 : MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO YOU—-USE BAIT IF NECESSARY 

When you force the other person to act, you are the one in control. It is always better to make your opponent come to you, abandoning his own plans in the process. Lure him with fabulous gains-then attack. You hold the cards.

LAW 9 : WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT 

Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory: The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying :1 word. Demonstrate, do not explicate. 

the third president of united states Thomas Jefferson said  - “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” 
The Holy book Bhagavat-Gita is totally based on karma not the outcome.

LAW 10 : INFECTION: AVOID THE UNHAPPY AND UNLUCKY 

You can die from someone else's misery - emotional states are as infectious as diseases. You may feel you are helping the drowning man but you are only precipitating your own disaster: The unfortunate sometimes draw misfortune on themselves; they will also draw it on you. Associate with the happy and fortunate instead. 

LAW 11 : LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU 

To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted. The more you are relied on, the more freedom you have. Make people depend on you  for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear. Never touch them enough so that they can do without you. 


The learning from this law is that make people to depend on you always at all the places. It may be in life, at work etc. We human being only follow to the leader from which we can get something. We don't follow the person which don't have anything that is of our use.

LAW 12 : USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM 

One sincere and honest move will cover over dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicions people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor; you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A timely gift-a Trojan horse will serve the same purpose.  

LAW 13 : WHEN ASKING FOR HELP, APPEAL TO PEOPLE’S SELF INTEREST, NEVER TO THEIR MERCY OR GRATITUDE 

If you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request, or in your alliance with him, that will benefit him, and emphasize

LAW 14 : POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY 

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying. 

LAW 15 : CRUSH YOUR ENEMY TOTALLY 

All great leaders since Moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (Sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) If one member is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. More is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: The enemy will recover, and will seek revenge. Crush him, not only in body but in spirit. 

You can think your enemy as a snack, if you will leave the snack half alive. Today or tomorrow it may kill you, so don't give that chance to the snack, if you want to kill it just kill it totally. In case of normal people like you and me this kind of snacks never exist,s o avoid the killing. just stop your relationship with them.


LAW 16 : USE ABSENCE TO INCREASE RESPECT AND HONOR 

Too much circulation makes the price go down: The more you are seen and heard from, the more common you appear If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about, even more admired. You must learn when to leave. Create value through scarcity. 

LAW 17 : KEEP OTHERS IN SUSPENDED TERROR: CULTIVATE AN AIR OF UNPREDICTABILITY 

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other peoples actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off—balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize

LAW 18 : DO NOT BUILD FORTRESSES TO PROTECT YOURSELF—ISOLATION IS DANGEROUS 

The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere - everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from - it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people, find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your by the crowd.

LAW 19 :  KNOW WHO YOU'RE DEALING WITH—DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON 

There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lam.

LAW 20 : DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE 

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself‘. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others~playing people against one another: making them pursue you.

LAW 21 : PLAY A SUCKER TO CATCH A SUCKER—--SEEM DUMBER THAN YOUR MARK
No one likes feeling stupider than the next person. The trick, then, is to make your victims feel smart—and not just smart, out smarter than you are. Once convinced o/"this, they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives

LAW 22 : USE THE SURRENDER TACTIC: TRANSFORM WEAKNESS INTO POWER 

When you are weaker; never fight for honor’s sake; choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror; time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you surrender first. By turning the other cheek you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power

LAW 23 : CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES 

Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper; than by flitting from one shallow mine to another intensity defeats ex-tensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron, the fat cow who will give you milk for a longtime to come.

LAW 24  : PLAY THE PERFECT COURTIER 

The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity‘ He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner Learn and apply the laws of corurtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

LAW 25 : RE-CREATE YOURSELF 

Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Recreate yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bones the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define it for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions-your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life. 

LAW 26 : KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN 

you must seem a paragon of civility and Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds. Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat's-paws to disguise your involvement.

LAW 27 : PLAY ON PEOPLE'S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULTLIKE FOLLOWING 

People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your wants vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power. 

LAW 28 : ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it. Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution, Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid. -Always act fearless if you are on right track.

LAW 29 : PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END 

The ending is everything. Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others. By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the fortune by thinking far ahead.

 LAW 30 : MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SEEM EFFORTLESS 

Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of-revealing how hard you work-it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you. 

LAW 31 : CONTROL THE OPTIONS: GET OTHERS TO PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU DEAL 

The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice: Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets. Give people options that some out in your favor whichever one they choose, Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose. Put them on the horns of a dilemma: They are gored wherever they turn.

LAW 32 : PLAY TO PEOPLES FANTASIES 

The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies ofthe masses.


LAW 33 : DISCOVER EACH MAN'S THUMBSCREW 

Everyone has a weakness, a gap in the castle wall. That weakness is usually an insecurity, an uncontrollable emotion or need; it can also be a small secret pleasure. Either may, once found, it is a thumbscrew you can turn to your advantage. 

LAW 34 : BE ROYAL IN YOUR OWN FASHION: ACT LIKE A KING TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE 

The way you carry yourself will often determine how you are treated: In the long run, appearing vulgar or common will make people disrespect you. For a king respects himself and inspires the same sentiment in others. By acting regally and confident of your powers, you make yourself seem destined to wear a crown. 

LAW 35 : MASTER THE ART OF TIMING 

Never seem to be in a hurry—hurrying betrays a lack of control over yourself: and over time. Always seem patient, as if you know that everything will come to you eventually. Become a detective of the right moment; out the spirit of the times, the trends that will carry you to power: Learn to stand back when the time is not yet ripe, and to strike fiercely when it has reached fruition. 

LAW 36 : DISDAIN THINGS YOU CANNOT HAVE: IGNORING THEM IS THE BEST REVENGE 

By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem. 

LAW 37 : CREATE COMPELLING SPECTACLES 

Striking imagery and grand symbolic gestures create the aura of power everyone responds to them. Stage spectacles for those around you, then, full of arresting visuals and radiant symbols that heighten your presence. Dazzled by appearances, no one will notice what you are really doing. 

LAW 38 : THINK AS YOU LIKE BUT BEHAVE LIKE OTHERS 

If you make a show of going against the times, flaunting your unconventional ideas and unorthodox ways, people will think that you only want attention and that you look down upon them. They will find a way to punish you for making them feel inferior It is far safer to blend in and nurture the common touch. Share your originality only with tolerant friends and those who are sure to appreciate your uniqueness. 

LAW 3 9 : STIR UP WATERS TO CATCH FISH 

Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself. you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance: Find the think in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings

LAW 40 : DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH 

What is offered for free is dangerous it usually involves either a trick or a hidden obligation. What has worth is worth paying for By paying your own way you stay clear of gratitude, guilt, and deceit. It is also often wise to pay the full price-—there is no cutting corners with excellence. Be lavish with your money and it circulating, for generosity is a sign and a magnet for power. 

It is a human tendency for a gift we will return a gift and for a insult we try to insult. And one more thing there is nothing free in this world. You always pay in some way like for reading for this blog post you are paying in terms of your time and my friend the time is the costliest asset of the world, you can not get it back.

LAW 41 : AVOID STEPPING INTO A GREAT MAN'S SHOES 

What happens first always appears better and more original than what comes after If you succeed a great man or have a famous parent, you will have to accomplish double their achievements to outshine them. Do not get lost in their shadow, or stuck in a past not of your own making: Establish your own name and identity by changing course. Slay the over bearing father; disparage his legacy, and gain power by shining in your own way. 

LAW 42 : STRIKE THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP WILL SCATTER 

Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual——the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoner of goodwill. you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence. Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them—they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them. Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter. 
When you are targeting something, then target the root not the branches. You can apply this analogy to any field like to learn something you need to concentrate its fundamentals not the places where you can use it. first know the fundamentals and learn them then apply for the use.

LAW 43 : WORK ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OTHERS 

Coercion creates a reaction that will eventually work against you. You must seduce others into wanting to move in your direction. A person you have seduced becomes your loyal pawn. And the way to seduce others is to operate on their individual psychologies and weaknesses. Soften up the resistant by working on their emotions, playing on what they hold dear and what they fear: Ignore the hearts and minds of others and they will grow to hate you. 

LAW 44 : DISARM AND INFURIATE WITH THE MIRROR EFFECT 

The mirror reflects reality, but it is also the perfect tool for deception: When you mirror your enemies, doing exactly as they do, they cannot figure out your strategy. The Mirror Effect mocks and humiliates them, making them overreact. By holding up a mirror to their psyches, you seduce them with the illusion that you share their values; by holding up a mirror to their actions, you teach them a lesson. Few can resist the power of the Mirror Effect. 

LAW 45 : PREACH THE NEED FOR CHANGE, BUT NEVER REFORM TOO MUCH AT ONCE 

Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt. If you are new to a position of power, or an outsider trying to build a power base, make a show of respecting the old way of doing things. If change is necessary, make it feel like a gentle improvement on the past.

LAW 46 : NEVER APPEAR TOO PERFECT 

Appearing better than others is always dangerous, but most dangerous of all is to appear to have no fault: or weaknesses. Envy mates silent enemies. It is smart to occasionally display defects, and admit to harmless vices, in order to deflect envy and appear more human and approachable. Only gods and the dead can seem perfect with impunity. 
People always in a dilemma that they will do everything with perfection but their is nothing called perfect. Its near to perfect always, we consider as perfect.

LAW 47 : DO NOT GO PAST THE MARK YOU AIMED FOR; IN VICTORY, LEARN WHEN TO STOP 

The moment of victory is often the moment of greatest peril. In the heat of victory, arrogance and overconfidence can push you past the goal you had aimed for; and by going too far, you make more enemies than you defeat. Do not allow success to go to your head. Time is no substitute for strategy and careful planning. Set a goal, and when you mach it, stop. 

Before start you must have an idea about the end. If you know where to end, then you are always ahead of your enemy.

LAW 48 : ASSUME. FORMLESSNESS 

By talking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack. Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move. Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order. Everything changes.  

This post if full of the wisdom from Robert green book the 48 laws of power.
Please read my other posts and subscribe to receive the notification in your mail.

Keep reading, keep learning.
-Mahesh

The checklist : A proven way to make right decision(s)



Every day, we take major or minor decisions in our day to day life. Some of them may be right and some of them may go wrong. We don’t know the consequence of our decisions i.e. we don’t know how it will impacts us or the people connected to us. So in order to get the odds in our favor, we need to concentrate on the right decisions making. But with human, there is a psychological and inheritance issue, most of the time we get biased whiles making decisions. We get biased towards psychological biases, what other people think, what society think, what happen if I am wrong, there are many…..

So the question is how to take the right decision?

And the answer comes from a simple checklist. While taking major decisions prepare a checklist with all the possible right and wrong outcomes and then check one by one. Example- while making an investment in stock market, you can have a checklist with question like-
-          Have I analyzed the industry well, without any bias?
-          Have I checked the management properly?
-          Do I have margin of safety at current price?
-          What if the investment goes wrong? Will it affect me and if yes how and in how many ways?
-          Am I able to sleep well if the invested money lost?
-          There are many more…….

The most of the problems in life and in investing and in any field will be solved by just a simple checklist.

If you don’t believe just read the full post, you come to believe on checklist procedure.

Failures are common across everything from medicine to finance to life to any industry. We should know better but we don't. The reason we don't learn is explained better in the book TheChecklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

“The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.”

What Atul is suggesting is the knowledge and information consumed by us is too much and very complex, so to take the advantage of the information and knowledge, we need to identify the definite way-Checklist

In every field from medicine to construction to aviation to IT to entertainment,  there are practical procedures, policies and best practices. Atul has given an situation from modern medical case:
“[Y]ou have a desperately sick patient and in order to have a chance of saving him you have to get the knowledge right and then you have to make sure that the 178 daily tasks that follow are done correctly—despite some monitor’s alarm going off for God knows what reason, despite the patient in the next bed crashing, despite a nurse poking his head around the curtain to ask whether someone could help “get this lady’s chest open.” There is complexity upon complexity. And even specialization has begun to seem inadequate. So what do you do?”

see the below checklist from Aviation industry-cessna 172 fuel injected checklist



In the book The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande discussed that super-intelligent specialist have two advantages over ordinary candidate: greater knowledge of the things that matter and “a learned ability to handle the complexities of that particular job.” But even for these super intelligent candidate, avoiding mistakes is proving impossible.

How the concept of checklist come to the knowledge:
In the book The checklist manifesto, Atul has explained as below-
“On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a competition for airplane manufacturers vying to build the next-generation of the long-range bomber. Only it wasn't supposed to be much of a competition at all. The Boeing Corporation's gleaming aluminum-alloy Model 299 was expected to steal the show, its design far superior to those of the competition. In other words, it was just a formality.

As the Model 299 test plane taxied onto the runway, a small group of army brass and manufacturing executives watched. The plane took off without a hitch. Then suddenly, at about 300 feet, it stalled, turned on one wing, and crashed killing two of the five crew members, including the pilot Major Hill.
Of course everyone wanted to know what had happened. An investigation revealed that there was nothing to indicate any problems mechanically with the plane. It was “pilot error.” The problem with the new plane, if there was one, was that it was substantially more complex than the previous aircraft. Among other things, there were 4 engines, each with its own fuel-mix, wing flaps, trim that needed constant adjustment, and propellers requiring pitch adjustment. While trying to keep up with the increased complexity, Hill had forgotten to release a new locking mechanism on the rudder controls. The new plane was too much for anyone to fly. The unexpected winner was the smaller designed Douglas.
Here is where it really gets interesting. The army, convinced of the technical superiority of the plane, ordered a few anyway. If you're thinking they'd just put the pilots through more training to fly the plane, you'd be wrong. Major Hill, the chief of flight testing, was an experienced pilot, so longer training was unlikely to result in improvement. Instead, they created a pilot's checklist.
The pilots made the list simple and short. It fit on an index card with step-by-step instructions for takeoff, flying, landing, and taxiing. It was as if someone all of a sudden gave an experienced automobile driver a checklist of things that would be obvious to them. There was nothing on the checklist they didn't know. Stuff like, check that the instruments are set, the door closed. Basics. That checklist changed the course of history and quite possibly the war. The pilots went on to fly the Model 299 a “total of 1.8 million miles” without a single accident and as a result the army ordered over 13,000 of them.”


Most of the today's industries are using checklist in one or in another form, as suggested by Atul:

Substantial parts of what software designers, financial managers, firefighters, police officers, lawyers, and most certainly clinicians do are now too complex for them to carry out reliably from memory alone.

When things change, you're now faced with a non-routine problem. “The philosophy,” writes Atul, “is that you push the power of decision making out to the periphery and away from the center. You give people the room to adapt, based on their experience and expertise. All you ask is that they talk to one another and take responsibility. That is what works.”
“The real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet they cannot succeed as isolated individuals, either—that is anarchy. Instead, they require a seemingly contradictory mix of freedom and expectation—expectation to coordinate, for example, and also to measure progress toward common goals.

That routine requires balancing a number of virtues: freedom and discipline, craft and protocol, specialized ability and group collaboration. And for checklists to help achieve that balance, they have to take two almost opposing forms. They supply a set of checks to ensure the stupid but critical stuff is not overlooked, and they supply another set of checks to ensure people talk and coordinate and accept responsibility while nonetheless being left the power to manage the nuances and unpredictabilities the best they know how.

This was the understanding people in the skyscraper-building industry had grasped. More remarkably, they had learned to codify that understanding into simple checklists. They had made the reliable management of complexity a routine.”

From the book, Seeking wisdom from Darwin toMunger by Peter Bevelin:

Checklist procedures : 

“Air carrier cockpit checklists to be reviewed in an effort to ensure that

each list provides a means of reminding the crew, immediately prior to
takeoff, that all items critical for safe flight have been accomplished.
- National Transportation Safety Board, 1969”


in the book an incident is shared as  - 

"In 1987, NorthwestAirlines flight 255 crashed shortly after take-off. All 155 persons

aboard expect one were killed. A federal report concluded that the probable cause of
the accident was the flight crew's failure to use the taxi checklist to ensure that the flaps
and slats were extended for takeoff. Contributing to the accident was the absence of
electrical power to the airplane's takeoff warning system, which consequently could
not warn the flight crew that the airplane was not configured properly for takeoff.
Use checklist procedures. Together with other tools they help us reduce the
chance of harm. Concentrate on the critical items. If we don't check for them we
may get harmed. Pilots call these the "killer items."


Charles Munger suggests using models in a checklist fashion:

“I think you need mental models - and what I call checklist procedures - where you take a worthwhile list of models and run right down them: "Is this here? Is that here?" and so on and so on ... Now if there are two or three items that are very important that aren't on your checklist - well, if you're an airplane pilot, you can crash. Likewise, if you're trying to analyze a company without using an adequate checklist, you may make a very bad investment.”

Some issues to think about when designing checklists are:
- Different issues need different checklists.
- A checklist must include each critical item necessary for "safety" and avoiding "accidents" so we don't need to rely on memory for items to be checked.
- Readily usable and easy to use.
- Agree with reality.

Doing something according to pre-established rules, filters and checklists often makes more sense than doing something out of pure emotion. But we can't have too many rules, filters or items without thinking. We must always understand what we're trying to accomplish.


In the book The Checklist manifesto Atul have shared many real time incidents, one of those is shared below – 

“One more aviation checklist story, this one relatively recent. The incident occurred on January 17, 2008, as British Airways Flight 38 approached London from Beijing after almost eleven hours in the air with 152 people aboard. The Boeing 777 was making its final descent into Heathrow airport. It was just past noon. Clouds were thin and scattered. Visibility was more than six miles. The wind was light, and the temperature was mild despite the season—50 degrees Fahrenheit. The flight had been completely uneventful to this point. Then, at two miles from the airport, 720 feet over a residential neighborhood, just when the plane should have accelerated slightly to level off its descent, the engines gave out. First the right engine rolled back to minimal power, then the left. The copilot was at the controls for the landing, and however much he tried to increase thrust, he got nothing from the engines. For no apparent reason, the plane had gone eerily silent. He extended the wing flaps to make the plane glide as much as possible and to try to hold it on its original line of approach. But the aircraft was losing forward speed too quickly. The plane had become a 350,000-pound stone falling out of the air. Crash investigators with Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch later determined that it was falling twenty-three feet per second. At impact, almost a quarter mile short of the runway, the plane was calculated to be moving at 124 miles per hour Only by sheer luck was no one killed, either on board or on the ground. The plane narrowly missed crashing through the roofs of nearby homes. Passengers in cars on the perimeter road around Heathrow saw the plane coming down and thought they were about to be killed. Through a coincidence of international significance, one of those cars was carrying British prime minister Gordon Brown to his plane for his first official visit to China. “It was just yards above our heads, almost skimming a lamppost as the plane came in very fast and very, very low,” an aide traveling with the prime minister told London’s Daily Mirror. The aircraft hit a grassy field just beyond the perimeter road with what a witness described as “an enormous bang.” The nose wheels collapsed on impact. The right main landing gear separated

from the aircraft, and its two right front wheels broke away, struck the right rear fuselage, and penetrated through the passenger compartment at rows 29 and 30. The left main landing gear pushed up through the wing. Fourteen hundred liters of jet fuel came pouring out. Witnesses saw sparks, but somehow the fuel did not ignite. Although the aircraft was totaled by the blunt force of the crash, the passengers emerged mostly unharmed— the plane had gone into a thousand-foot ground slide that slowed its momentum and tempered the impact. Only a dozen or so passengers required hospitalization. The worst injury was a broken leg. Investigators from the AAIB were on the scene within an hour trying to piece together what had happened. Their initial reports, published one month and then four months after the crash, were documents of frustration. They removed the engines, fuel system, and data recorders and took them apart piece by piece. Yet they found no engine defects whatsoever. The data download showed that the fuel flow to the engines had reduced for some reason, but inspection of the fuel feed lines with a boroscope—a long fiberoptic videoscope—showed no defects or obstructions. Tests of the valves and wiring that controlled fuel flow showed they had all functioned properly. The fuel tanks contained no debris that could have blocked the fuel lines
Attention therefore turned to the fuel itself. Tests showed it to be normal Jet A-1 fuel. But investigators, considering the flight’s path over the Arctic Circle, wondered: could the fuel have frozen in flight, caused the crash, then thawed before they could find a trace of it? The British Airways flight had followed a path through territory at the border of China and Mongolia where the recorded ambient air temperature that midwinter day was −85 degrees Fahrenheit. As the plane crossed the Ural Mountains and Scandinavia, the recorded temperature fell to −105 degrees. These were not considered exceptional temperatures for polar flight. Although the freezing point for Jet A-1 fuel is −53 degrees, the dangers were thought to have been resolved. Aircraft taking Arctic routes are designed to protect the fuel against extreme cold, and the pilots monitor the fuel temperature constantly. Crosspolar routes for commercial aircraft opened in February 2001, and thousands of planes have traveled them without incident since. In fact, on the British Airways flight, the lowest fuel temperature recorded was −29 degrees, well above the fuel’s freezing point. Furthermore, the plane was over mild-weathered London, not the Urals, when the engines lost power. Nonetheless, investigators remained concerned that the plane’s flight path had played a role. They proposed an elaborate theory. Jet fuel normally has a minor amount of water moisture in it, less than two drops per gallon. During cold-air flights, the moisture routinely freezes and floats in the fuel as a suspension of tiny ice crystals. This had never been considered a signifi- cant problem. But maybe on a long, very smooth polar flight—as this one was—the fuel flow becomes so slow that the crystals have time to sediment and perhaps accumulate somewhere in the fuel tank. Then, during a brief burst of acceleration, such as on the final approach, the sudden increase in fuel flow might release the accumulation, causing blockage of the fuel lines.
The investigators had no hard evidence for this idea. It seemed a bit like finding a man suffocated in bed and arguing that all the oxygen molecules had randomly jumped to the other end of the room, leaving him to die in his sleep—possible, but preposterously unlikely. Nonetheless, the investigators tested what would happen if they injected water directly into the fuel system under freezing conditions. The crystals that formed, they found, could indeed clog the lines. Almost eight months after the crash, this was all they had for an explanation. Everyone was anxious to do something before a similar accident occurred. Just in case the explanation was right, the investigators figured out some midflight maneuvers to fix the problem. When an engine loses power, a pilot’s instinct is to increase the thrust—to rev the engine. But if ice crystals have accumulated, increasing the fuel flow only throws more crystals into the fuel lines. So the investigators determined that pilots should do the opposite and idle the engine momentarily. This reduces fuel flow and permits time for heat exchangers in the piping to melt the ice—it takes only seconds—allowing the engines to recover. At least that was the investigators’ best guess. So in September 2008, the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States issued a detailed advisory with new procedures pilots should follow to keep ice from accumulating on polar flights and also to recover flight control if icing nonetheless caused engine failure. Pilots across the world were somehow supposed to learn about these findings and smoothly incorporate them into their flight practices within thirty days. The remarkable thing about this episode—and the reason the story is worth telling—is that the pilots did so.
How this happened—it involved a checklist, of course—is instructive. But first think about what happens in most lines of professional work when a major failure occurs. To begin with, we rarely investigate our failures. Not in medicine, not in teaching, not in the legal profession, not in the financial world, not in virtually any other kind of work where the mistakes do not turn up on cable news. A single type of error can affect thousands, but because it usually touches only one person at a time, we tend not to search as hard for explanations.”


What are the other areas where you can apply the checklist to make the right decisions are to avoid the errors or mistakes, some of them are below:

- In medical field, in operations, surgery etc.
- In Aviation industry, as we discussed above in the post.
- In Real estate and construction industry, you can get a sense of it in my other post.
- In Software industry when you prepare the unit test plans. It's nothing but the changed name of checklist only.
- In Pharmacy industry, you follow a certain guideline while preparing the medicines.
- In Stock investment, you prepare your own checklist and you cross verify your investment against the checklist-it’s very useful in investing.
- In life, while taking major decisions like buying house.
- In any plant construction, like constructing the Nuclear plan. We need to follow many checkpoint and we need to take care of margin  of safety as well.
- In military operations, the military works on rules and guidelines only. It’s one kind of checklist and it’s a discipline in military.
 - When working in teams to achieve a specified goal, we design some rules to follow that are nothing but a form of checklist.

There are many examples from real life, you can share your examples in the comment and you can subscribe to my blog, to get the post notification in your email.

There are many other interesting posts shared on my blogs, you can read some of them by clicking on the below link:

 - Margin of safety to get the odds in your favor.
-  Journal writing, to arrange your thought and help you to make right decisions in life and in work.

There are many more, you can read on this blog.

Thanks for reading and keep learning.
- Mahesh