Epiphany Moments that Change Your Worldview

Nice. ...great to see an article.....haven't read it yet....want to sit down properly and then read.....But wanted to say thanks...have been checking the site every now and then......

I'm so glad to see that you're still writing here. This blog has given me so much value and inspiration, I felt compelled to comment (something that I've rarely done). Thanks for your body of work, Joshua.

Glad you did! I'm happy it's useful to you!

The latest, that my wife and I may never be able to have biological children and realizing that adopting can be a wonderful thing in more ways then one. If it happens or when it happens, I'll drop by and let you guys know about it! Let's keep our fingers crossed, it's all new to us at the moment. Glad to see a new post.

We look forward to hearing about it. We wish you and your wife all the best in the world on your journey!

This epiphany is a bit strange, but here goes...

My epiphany was understanding just how incredibly powerful, precise and predictive a good logical data model can be.

What the heck is logical data model? It's a diagram that shows you what things can be stored in the database, how those things relate to each other and how to individually identify each thing.

Why is this so important? I work with multiple legacy databases that were never properly documented. I frequently have clients tell me that I can get a certain piece of data out of a certain database and when I look it doesn't make any sense. Eventually I work something out and am able to specify a reporting system for that data. It usually works.

Now that I know how to build these data models I can quickly get an idea of what's actually going on in a database, I can predict where there will be problems, and I can fact check whatever a client tells me. This ability to verify and corroborate what people tell me against the data is incredibly freeing. The number and types of mistakes and assumptions I catch this way are amazing.

When it comes time to build a report I can use that model to build a different kind of model built just for reporting - a snowflake schema. I now know exactly what I'm reporting on and why. If I need to I can use the data model as a scaffold to build a full field by field data dictionary.

I had known about these diagrams for years, but never really *got* them until I read a painstakingly precise book - "Mastering Data Modeling: A User-Driven Approach." It went over how each feature in the model allowed you to predict something in the data, and how data that didn't match meant either the data or the model was wrong. The data model is the bloodhound of bullshit detectors. It gave me the intellectual scaffold to understand the theory behind the business intelligence industry, and enough confidence and joy to embrace that industry as a career.

Let me put it another way that should resonate with more readers: It's like suddenly understanding the accounting equation, income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement *after* you've been slaving away as a bookkeeper for years.

I interned at a law firm during a period in which the founder left.

He had started this law firm from scratch, built it up to dozens of attorneys, and turned an initial debt burden of $500,000 into a cash reserve / rainy day fund of $2.5 million within twenty years. He built strong connections, was generally well admired, and was the “soul” of the operations. I’d guess $75 million in salary got paid out to attorneys over his two decades--he singlehandedly laid the ground work for a whole lot of economic activity.

Within one day of his departure, the firm carried on as though he had never existed.

The rapidity of how quickly you are forgotten, even for something that is your baby, gives much instruction on the reality of life.

To be fair, this could mean that succession planning had worked as intended. Sentimentality can even be a liability if it disrupts business or causes management to cling to old traditions in the face of changing times (à la Kodak). Sometimes, pragmatism > nostalgia.

I don't know how it went at the law firm where you interned, of course - I'm speaking broadly, and my view is colored by my experiences at my old firm where the founder was very pragmatic about succession planning.

This is a great one. The epiphany is definitely true. It's also true, as Gilvus highlighted, that institutional success means making yourself completely unnecessary when you depart so the wheel keeps turning after you've left, never skipping a beat. It takes a strong sense of self-worth to be able to do something like that; to put the needs of the creation you've brought into the world ahead of your own. Think about Coca-Cola after Woodruff, for example. It just kept going ...

Unrelated. If you were an elector in a state that Trump won, what would you do?

So glad to see a blog post from you. Made me think, as always. The epiphanies I can think of are maybe a bit personal to share in a comments section.

I've thought about you and Aaron a number of times in the past two weeks since the election. I can only hope your rights, and those of others like you (and unlike you) are kept intact, though I fear for backward progress for awhile.

Take care of yourself. I hope you two are able to grow your family soon.

We appreciate you thinking about us. I mean it, those aren't just words. (The results of this election have caused us to radically alter our expected timeline over the next few years on several fronts, moving certain things around in ways that will permanently change our lives. We'll probably talk about it at some point in the future; most likely six months or so as we move pieces and get everything in order. In a relatively short amount of time, our life won't look little like it does now. It's time to retreat to greener pastures and pull up the drawbridge.)

The story you shared, are the inconsistency avoidance tendency and the social proof mental models to blame?

I ask if those mental models are to blame because of a book I read titled Predictably Irrational. The author claims that just as a person cannot help but see visual illusions, their brain cannot help but see mental illusions. After reading that I suddenly knew what Munger meant by 'mental shortcuts.' They are non-optional programs that you can't help but run as a brain. So do the people have a responsibility to use data to see past the mental models, or do they get a pass because the mental models are automatic and evolved to be necessary for survival?

As my grandmother lay dying in the hospital bed I started to have thoughts, which is a really rare thing. I was already struggling with the fact that no, it is not ok to stone homosexual people. Yet as I looked at her I knew something. Data was keeping her alive. Not prayers. Not faith. It was medical data that was helping her.

Data. What am I to do with this anger I feel towards the people of my past who helped shape my world based upon their garbage? Are they to blame, and if so should I punish them somehow? Are their automatic functioning mental models to be blamed, and if so were they responsible for overcoming that? What about myself, how much of it am I to blame for? Are my past mistakes really just a running of mental models due to a lack of data driven decisions? I don't know, this anger has been placed in the too hard pile while it fizzles out, but should there be a spark then it'll come back. No there’s not just anger there, there is hurt. There is pain knowing how I’ve hurt my family by acting out mental models instead of data based decisions. I’m faced with a loss of words when I imagine how nonsense based decisions have hurts others, and society, in general. I’m in disbelief that instead of working towards eternal life, at least towards longer lifespans, people are working towards pulling others down to maintain the status quo. I just don’t know how to explain this.

In the long run it is all nonsensical jibberish anyway. As a gaming addict I'm just looking for yet another reason that I can give that I am not responsible for doing things. How can I take responsibility for doing things when my every free minute is filled with gaming? I wish it wasn't that way, but it is, and regardless of what data based decisions I should be making based on my ‘epiphany’ at the end of the day I know I can’t do them. I will game. I don’t have a choice. I could tell you that my health is important, or my family, but the data of how I spend my time is clear that gaming is the most important thing to me. I’ve always hated Munger for that, the fact that in your 2008 post he shrugs off his #13 mental model (bias from chemical dependency) and gives it little more than a “Well we don’t need to talk about that...” I wish he did talk about it.

P.S. Will you reveal your election based epiphany? I wanted to determine which mental model would cause people to riot over the election but I’ve had to put it on the too hard pile. There are so many things I don’t understand about this election but there is one thing I do understand, I voted for the first time. And I’m proud. I kept hearing Joshua’s post saying that it is not an inconvenience to leave work to exercise your rights as an American citizen. By acting on Joshua’s advice and getting an office based “knowledge” job instead of a factory “labor” job, I was able to vote without officially leaving work. And by goodness I did it.

I'm glad you shared that. It's interest to me how differently people react to upgrading their software to the mental model approach to the world; how seeing how things actually are can change everything. In my case, there was no anger. It was sadness, almost like grieving the death of a loved one. It took me a year or two to fully work through it. I didn't want to punish, I wanted to help.

Regarding chemical dependency, I think Munger skipped over it in that speech because he had talked about it so much in the past, saying that it was probably the single biggest breakthrough humanity would have in terms of misery reduction; if someone could figure it out in neurology or pharmacology. Back in a speech he gave in the 1980s, he talked about the personal toll it had taken in his own life and how learning to avoid it was one of the absolute necessities if you wanted to avoid being unhappy, "The four closest friends of my youth were highly intelligent, ethical, humorous types, favoured in person and background. Two are long dead, with alcohol a contributing factor, and a third is a living alcoholic -if you call that living. While susceptibility varies, addiction can happen to any of us, through a subtle process where the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. And I have yet to meet anyone, in over six decades of life, whose life was worsened by overfear and overavoidance of such a deceptive pathway to destruction." Munger's solution is simple: If you have a dependency on video games, moderation is not an option. Like a battlefield surgeon dealing with gangrene, it must be amputated entirely; the limb cut off to save the person. In your case, it means you have to sacrifice any enjoyment you'd get out of video games for significantly higher overall life satisfaction. Is it fair? Hell no. Does it suck? Yes. Are people who don't understand the extent of the addiction going to (in good nature) attempt to get you to share their enjoyment? Yes. It blows. It does. But those are the cards in your personal deck and thus, those are the cards you must play. If I were in that situation, I wouldn't even have a television in my home.

The election ... yes. Someday, I'll write about it. It might be a week from now. It might be a year from now. I need to be in the right place, both intellectually and emotionally, to communicate the complexity of what I'm feeling.

Joshua, there are other influences on the anger as well, I don’t think it is just from the mental model software being uploaded. I’m tired of being taken advantage of by those that I trust, especially those in authority. I’m just trying to justify doing something about it, but I could never actually act on that anger. Not even after knowing about mental models. Due to mental models, I know that I…well I have to protect myself first, and I hate that.

Joshua, a long time ago I was suicidal. I don’t think I could ever actually do that but there was no reason to live. It was so hard to follow all the rules of the church…such as not looking at attractive people lustfully, and I had no real sense of purpose in life. I’ve never known what I want to do, like other people do. But I couldn’t off myself for two reasons. The first reason is that my religion forbade it. The second reason is that it would hurt my family. Therefore I decided that I might as well play video games, not only does it pass the time until death but it also allows me to keep some of the tougher commands of the church.

The first reason, that my religion forbade it, well I’ve never even read the Bible because I was afraid I wouldn’t agree with it. I was afraid of knocking off the first reason…but data based decisions have done that. Because I now know and accept that decisions should be based on data and not feelings, that’s why I know that my church is not a moral authority anymore. I don’t have to listen to them concerning things such as committing suicide, stoning homosexuals, or being cursed for the actions of my parents. I’ve built my entire life around the church…thus explaining some of my anger when I discovered mental models. Anger at them but more importantly, anger at myself for being duped. I can’t even turn off the programming they gave me.

The second reason, because of my family, well this Thanksgiving my grandparents didn’t even know my name. After firing toxic people from my life, I have only one person that I wouldn’t want to hurt.

So the video games, I’m really scared of removing that. I’m scared that instead of ‘significantly higher overall life satisfaction’ I’ll find myself in a really dark and depressing place. I’ll be alone with myself, and this mind that invents all these elaborate plots to oppose me and make things harder on myself. I’m scared of what it will be like. I mean there are real suicidal people out there, and if it turns out that I could never really do that then what kind of mind do I have? It scares me, and continues to scare me even after learning that mental models are partially to blame. But because of the three highest life goals that you introduced me to, those of health, wealth, and relationships…I’m starting to have some hope that I might survive it. Yet even if I do quit gaming, it is not like I can just cut out all computers and technology from my life. I’ll have to work on the computer eventually.

Well I set out to better explain why I feel this anger when I think about mental models. I’m not quite so sure I did that very well. Bottom line, I need to use it to fix things, but I can't bring myself to, and it makes me angry, but not the mental models in and of themselves. Does that make sense? However if you made it this far…thanks for listening and for clearing up Munger’s (and your?) position on chemical dependency.

"the bonds of degradation are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken." What does this mean, like if someone eats unhealthy every day you won't notice but then once you have a heart attack suddenly you can never undo the damage you've chained yourself to?

Hey Owen. I'm not Charlie Munger, but I am a former gaming addict so maybe I can provide a perspective that's more tailor-made for your situation. For context: I lost multiple scholarships in college when my grades went down and my girlfriend left me for greener pastures. I spent over a year in extended adolescence (semi- or un-employed, living in mom's basement) after graduating. In short: I remember all too well how the black hole of gaming addiction pulls you back into orbit as soon as you think you're about to escape. To add insult to injury, people didn't take gaming addiction seriously, so there wasn't a deep pool of resources to tap. That's slowly starting to change...but therapy is expensive.

In hindsight, there are a myriad of factors that allowed me to reach escape velocity, but the biggest one that I stumbled upon was what Charles Duhigg described in The Power of Habit, where the book opens with a case study of a woman who beat her chemical dependency and everything else that came with it (obesity, spotty employment record, relationship problems). Duhigg describes the Habit Loop which consists of three components: cue, routine, and reward (click for visuals). The basic idea is that once the habit is formed, you cannot change the cue or the reward, but you can replace the routine with something else.

For me, I played video games when I felt inadequate or I felt that familiar fear of not knowing where my life was going (the cue). So I'd jump into the shoes of the great hero or the dragonslayer or whatever (the routine) because the game was structured and the objectives were clear. Then I'd spend three hours grinding my underwater basket weaving skills until I could finally slay the dragon, giving me this sense of accomplishment (the reward). I broke my gaming addiction by replacing the routine with other things. For example:
- I looked in the mirror and didn't like what I saw (cue). Instead of going to play games, I went to exercise instead, and imagined myself grinding away so I could get Strength +1 or Constitution +2 (routine). After a week or two, the results would show and I'd feel accomplished for being able to run faster or perform some athletic feat (the reward).
- I look at my bank statement and don't like what I see (cue). So I learn how to invest (Investment Knowledge +1). Learned how to structure a business (Business Acumen +2). Learned how to create value out of thin air and demand royalties for its use (routine). Then I can look at the body of assets I've accumulated like I used to look at my stash in video gaming (reward).
In this context, I never really stopped gaming. I'm still playing a game: the most immersive, massive MMORPG of all time, where most NPCs have incredible AI and the graphics are in mega-ultra-nearly-infinite HD. The game of Life™, if you will (not the board game). As a bonus, this approach made drudgery a little more fun. In hindsight, things like accumulating a six-figure net worth or getting nice abs is just like it is in the video games: lots of grinding and sharpening, with small wins along the way, until you beat the final boss or finish a questline. After that, you go forth with your new trinkets in search of new damsels in distress or dragons to slay.

I rarely give unsolicited advice, but I hope you can see from our past interactions that I'm doing this because I really, really want you to escape that gaming black hole. It's not because I'm trying to feel important by bragging about my accomplishments or bossing you around while kissing my biceps in the mirror. I strongly advise that you get a copy of The Power of Habit (I liked it so much that I have both a paper copy and audiobook). When you're ready to usurp the gaming routine and replace it with something else, do what @joshuakennon:disqus suggested in his earlier comment to you: go cold turkey. Amputate the gangrene. Years ago, I didn't just throw away my Diablo II and WC3 CDs, I smashed them first as a symbolic gesture. These days, I suggest deleting your characters. Deleting your achievements and trophies. Deleting your Steam account so you can't get everything back in a relapse. Make it costly to go back.

I hope some of this sticks. I also want you to know that you someone out there rooting for you, not as an outside observer but as a fellow sufferer. I'll close with this powerful quote.

Hey Gilvus, thanks for that. So I drooped everything and focused on reading The Power of Habit. Finished it yesterday. Learned about them cues, routines, and rewards. So are you and that author suggesting that the old habits be kept? Did ya ever worry that bringing that fierce obsessiveness, the drive that allows me to grind stats up for 14 hours a day, did ya ever worry that bringing it into other parts of life might be bad?

I vaguely remember Napoleon Hill's writings mentioning something along the lines of "thoughts are things." Clotaire Rapaille says that the primitive always wins. Joshua Kennon may have mentioned that school trains us to be good factory workers. So have the successful been taught different routines then the rest of us, as a deliberate act against us? For example when I have the primitive thought "gee I'm hungry" my routine will be to remember the food pyramid that I was taught in school and try to find some bread or pastas. I learned to down the food within five minutes so I can feel full and get back to class on time. My doctor has recently stepped in though to give me better data and habits. So are the successful selected to learn different routines then the rest of us (similar to how only children of rich or influential parents got to play on the basketball team, regardless of ability). Or did you and the rest of the successful actively create these habits on your own? Either way what are the successful people's routines for health, wealth, and finding a spouse?

And how can I manipulate these cues in others (culture codes, mental models) to force them into beneficial routine / rewards for myself? Can I use it to get a raise at work?

At least those are the initial questions this book raises in my mind. But since this isn't a book club, I suppose I'll just stop now and send you my heartfelt thanks. Its as if that book brought pieces of the puzzle together, certainly not everything, but enough to thank you again.

Hey Owen, I'll try to answer below:

So are you and that author suggesting that the old habits be kept?

No. It's more like the old habit loop cannot be erased. That's why relapse rates are so high for people who successfully kicked any addiction - once you're entrenched, it'll be with you for life. The key is to hijack the habit loop by replacing the "routine" part of it with something constructive rather than destructive.

Did ya ever worry that bringing that fierce obsessiveness, the drive that allows me to grind stats up for 14 hours a day, did ya ever worry that bringing it into other parts of life might be bad?

I've never thought of it before until you mentioned it. But now that I have, I'm not worried. As I wrote above, successfully replacing the "routine" means you're repeatedly doing something constructive. In that sense, an obsessiveness toward a beneficial activity is good! If you really, really want to get good at something, an obsession is your ally. It's only an "obsession" if it's bad. It's "focus" when it's good.

So have the successful been taught different routines then the rest of us, as a deliberate act against us?

To answer the first part of your question (different routines): sometimes they have, but not always. Consider research that indicate 80-90% of Americans millionaires are first-generation affluent. I can't speak for them, but I'd wager that they learned the new routines themselves. To answer the second part (deliberate act): let me step back a bit and strip away the accusatory nature of the question. I believe that successful parents who taught their kids successful routines did it deliberately, but they didn't do it to oppress the downtrodden. Consider the nature of competition: people vying for a limited resource. Not everyone wins. I don't hold any grudges against parents who want the best for their kids - even if it means that their kid wins a trophy and the other kids go home empty-handed. I would do the same in their position.

Or did you and the rest of the successful actively create these habits on your own?

For starters, I don't consider myself "successful" because I have a looooong way to go, but things are coming along nicely. I can tell you that in the areas where I've achieved above-average success, it was 95% taking the advice of successful people, and 5% habits that I created by myself. When just starting out, my M.O. is to emulate those who succeeded before me until I've developed enough know-how to strike out on my own.

Either way what are the successful people's routines for health, wealth, and finding a spouse?

Oh boy. Each successful person could write volumes about each of these topics...and they would disagree on many things because everyone's needs and desires are different. Before you ask for actionable advice, I'm going to kick back the question in a more refined form: What do YOU, Owen, consider "healthy," "wealthy," and "a good relationship," and how much are you willing to sacrifice to get each one? Until you have a clear vision of what you want in each category, it'll be hard to get good advice from other people. They will only tell you how they achieved THEIR goals.

And how can I manipulate these cues in others (culture codes, mental models) to force them into beneficial routine / rewards for myself?

I suggest focusing on yourself first, before you focus on manipulating others. To kick this gaming addiction, you can't just stop playing games. You have to apply the gaming mentality to other parts of your life. For example, when I read a book, it's "Intelligence +1." When I exercise, it's "Strength +1." When I purchase an investment, I'm "leveling-up" my economic engine. Over time, the new routine (playing the game of life) will replace the old routine (playing whatever game you were playing on your computer).

Can I use it to get a raise at work?

If you can kick your gaming addiction and direct your energy into constructive activities, you will become more skilled, making you more interesting, which in turn makes you more likeable. This is the core of getting paid more, and this strategy is far more effective and sustainable than using Jedi Mind Tricks to manipulate people. You can use mental models to fine-tune your approach once you have the basics down.

You're welcome, Owen. After years of following Joshua, I finally feel like I've reached a level where I can start paying it forward. I hope you will feel that way in a few years, once you've leashed your demons and made significant progress toward your goals.

How does one get a 'clear vision' of what they want?

I only had an epiphany once so far but I remember it well. Many years ago, within one short second, I finally and absolutely understood what anonymity in the internet really meant.
I had always known that being online provides you a certain layer of concealment. You hide behind behind a screen and keyboard and people never truly know who they are dealing with online. However I never really, truly, understood the implications.

Roughly a decade ago I was spending much time in which was my favorite online shooter/RPG game at the time. Being online with my friends, hunting monsters, gathering xp points, you name it. We had a great and mostly friendly online community.
There was one guy among us however, whom most of us never really liked. We never knew him in person but played online with him a lot. He was a young guy, loud, brash and quite the chauvinist. The fact that he was a pretty good player and got his fair share of kills made his bragging even more annoying. In the game’s community forum he was omnipresent, either commenting or posting nsfw images.
He was just a pretentious jock and his forum profile photo proved that he also looked the part.

After all playing together for a year we decided that it would be a great idea to have a big community meetup. We set a date and decided to all meet up in person for the first time. Since we were all scattered over different places we decided on a nice steakhouse in a city in the middle of the country.
My friends and me were looking forward to meet everybody. Specifically this annoying bigmouth who was always too cool for the rest of us. Of course we intended to use the opportunity to give him a piece of our mind.
At first he didn’t want to attend the meetup at all, claiming that he had to take a train, since he didn’t have a car. He said, he didn’t like the hassle of riding a train just to meet us.
He made plenty of other excuses why he was to busy to attend, but he eventually agreed to show up.

We all met a few weeks later. The party was already going for an hour before he showed up. There was maybe 20 of us there, eating, drinking, talking and enjoying the night. Finally he arrived and came walking into the restaurant.
I looked his way and recognized him quickly from his profile picture. The others also started noticing him and went silent. After a couple of seconds it had gotten very quiet in the restaurant and most of us were just staring awkwardly at him.
He was a young guy, maybe 18 years old or so. He was of normal height and weight and wouldn’t have been noticed at all if his arms had not been missing.
Where his arms should have been there were just tiny stumps that ended at the where elbows would have been.
I was sitting closest to the door and after just staring at him for a couple of seconds, I got up, held my hand out to him like an idiot and retracted it immediately.
He didn’t say anything and the look on his face could not have been more scared if we had pointed a gun at his face.
This was the moment when it all made sense to me. His behavior in the (online) public, his cleverly chosen profile picture (just showing his upper body) and his extra cool behavior in the game.
Playing an online game with people who couldn’t see how he really looked allowed him to be just like everybody else. Online he wasn’t noticed or singled out for his deformed body. Until that moment I had never really understood what anonymity in the internet can mean.

Finally the silence broke and other people got up to greet him. The first minutes were a bit awkward but then it got easier. He was extremely shy and timid, nothing like his online alter ego. After a while he finally said ‘It’s alright, you can ask me’.
We asked him everything we wanted to know. How he uses a mouse and keyboard, how he eats, how he opens doors, and everything else that you wonder when you see a person without arms.
It turned out that the 300 mile train and bus ride he had to take to meet us had been quite a challenge for him. Yet he traveled all the way on his own, just to meet us and gave up his anonymity to be part of our group.
We had played with this guy for a over a year and never had any clue that he was disabled.

I don’t know his name anymore or any other details of that night but I still remember the moment when I understood what the anonymity of the internet can mean for people who do not fit in.

I appreciate that you took the time to write this out so we could all learn from it.

On a tangentially related note, it's interesting given how timely it is with the bill that is quietly being pushed through the United Kingdom at the moment. It would require the Internet providers there to track every website a person visits and give dozens of government agencies access to their Internet history so it can be reviewed. I think the ramifications of that lack of (effective) anonymity will ultimately be catastrophic. Combined with the fact the government over there is simultaneously attempting to ban pornography - which isn't, really, about pornography at all but, rather, about putting in place the infrastructure and mechanisms to control information and content that is deemed undesirable or dangerous in the future ... the old curse, "May you live in interesting times" certainly seems to fit this year.

Glad to see you around! Hope you and Aaron are having lots of startup fun

I have a few "epiphanies" that I can recall in the recent decade or so of my life. The very first one that I learned a few years after college graduation is that you don't have to work for 40 years at a 9 to 5 job before you retire. This notion might seem pedestrian to most if not all of the readers here now, but when I first realized that, it was an extremely exciting revelation. The fact that you could spend time how you choose rather than how someone else dictated is not only satisfying, but also very motivating. Upon learning that, it really drove me to start reading and thinking about the topic much more - I use to think that you did pretty much most of the learning you needed to for life in school, and understanding the term financial independence really changed my thinking on that

Secondly, and this stems from the quest for learning from number one, it was very enlightening to realize that for all economic activity, whether it's something as small as the local plumber's company, to something as global as the Coca Cola company, there's someone that is an owner. It was just naivety, but I really thought everyone has a job and never really tried to think on a secondary level who owns the profits or losses for a company. From sheer ignorance, I assumed that profit earned was just dispersed back to society as a whole (it is dispersed, but to owners). The realization that *I* can be an owner and not just a seller of my own personal time really drove me to think about what I can do to become an owner. This has led to better saving habits, as well as better reading & learning habits. The more I read and learn too, the more I realize how little I know and how much there is to learn, which is very exciting.

Lastly, I always had this conception that sales was a dirty thing to do, and that anyone who was in sales must be unscrupulous and untrustworthy. Obviously that stereotype does exist, and I'm not sure if there was one moment where I had the epiphany on this, but comparing what I think now to what I think back then, there's a world of difference. What all productive people do everyday all the time is sell, if not physical goods, then ideas or decisions through persuasion and motivation. I look at those who work in sales in a much higher light now, and I greatly admire what the good salespeople are capable of.

Those are all of the career/business related epiphanies, there's quite a few more personal ones that like Joe said, isn't fit for public commentary. I really hope that both you and Aaron find some time to write & publish in the coming months. I truly miss this community and the conversations you (and hopefully in the future, Aaron) hold with all of us

Nice to see you back! I can think of two epiphanies that changed my life. The first was reading The Mastery of Love by don Miguel Ruiz. In retrospect the book has some glaring flaws, but one idea was stuck in there changed my world view almost instantly. Taking care of myself, and making myself happy isn't a bad thing. You can refuse to let other people drag you down and treat you poorly without being a bad person. It seems basic now, but at the time I was stuck in a pattern of putting other people desires ahead of my own regardless of the consequences or effects on my own well being.

The second epiphany actually came from an earlier post on this blog. It was the realization that the world doesn't owe you anything. If you want something in life it's your responsibility to make it happen. Waiting for the world to realize your potential isn't a valid strategy. Again, it seems pretty basic now that I've had a few years to digest, but it certainly didn't at the time.

Great insightful article, as always. What immediately came to mind to me is when I was in my early 30's and my husband almost died of septic shock (four and a half years ago now). I can clearly remember sitting next to him in the ICU, when he was on a ventilator in an induced coma, wondering how I was going to tell our kids that their father died. He had been healthy going into the hospital, and the sepsis was the result of a surgery gone wrong. It took years to recover. Through that entire process I learned a lot. About accepting help, even though I'm a fiercely independent person. About why it really was a good thing that I had an emergency fund/plan. About the things that financial security can really give you, when everything goes wrong. About the importance of family. About what really matters, and not sweating the small stuff. About how determination and hard work can get you from a ventilator to a normal life. And about how short and fragile life really is. It changed me so much that I usually think of my life as "before" and "after" that event.

Thank you for sharing something so personal. I can't even imagine what that must have been like for you, your husband, and your children.

One of my epiphanies came almost 7 years ago to the day - it was Black Friday, 2009. I had just bought a new camera on sale, and was stewing in buyer's remorse. Then I read this article about annual reports and 10-Ks, which was on the old Investors for Beginners platform. The part about people spending more time comparing refrigerators than investments hit me like a freight train loaded with congealed shame.

That was the day I cast aside my old priorities, and started my journey toward accumulating assets instead of more stuff.

Among the many things I'm thankful for today, I'd like to express my appreciation for your leading me to this epiphany so long ago.

A post! Wonderful! And I love the photos and the message of inclusion and warning to be aware of ones own filters. Great to see this wonderful article. Great photos too! No big moments for me - I have always known what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it since in early age. It has mostly been macro and micro refinements over time. My world view doesn't match with everyone's value system so I get a lot of suggestions and consternation. Your past article in being OK with not being liked was appreciated. Speaking of which - after this recent election I can't help but notice that voices of reason appear to have gone silent, dormant or perhaps are simply lost in the din of emotion that is occuring. Your posts of rational discourse are a public service and appreciated.

Gone silent, or dormant, is an appropriate description. Aaron and I are in the process of withdrawing and pulling up the proverbial drawbridge. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I'll write about them at some point in the future, but something happened that caused it to almost be instinctual. In our case, it began with the political reaction to the Orlando shootings and went through to election day. It was strange. Even now, there's a strong urge for Aaron and I to drop off the grid entirely and end up in seclusion with only our family knowing where we are. I think it's a self-preservation reaction. I'm not sure when it will happen but, most likely, it will be the middle of the night sometime and the words will flow ...

As someone who has fiercely defended his own anonymity and privacy, I've been equally awed, inspired, and terrified by the amount of personal information you have shared online. Your deep transparency about your philosophies, your wealth and how you obtain and grow it, and - frankly - your sexual orientation: these topics, among many others, have allowed you to share intimate stories and wide reaching wisdom and belief systems. Despite never looking you in the eye or shaking your hand, I'm among the hundreds? thousands? of individuals who would count you as a top 5 influence in my life. And yet, sadly, what you've shared does indeed put you and your family at personal risk.

Daily, the ever-phony impression of internet anonymity erodes, attacked on all fronts by individuals doxxing and harassing and swatting, state actors archiving and analyzing and flagging, religious extremists manufacturing hit lists, etc... To read your comment above and hear your voice gradually (or suddenly?) quieted may be its own moment of epiphany for many readers. It's echoing in my mind an epiphany I had during the heyday of AIM and IRC, before the advent of Facebook, when I "went dark" - permanent Lurker Status with a few exceptions like this comment. It was clear to me that participation had immense privacy risks, and now, it's becoming clear that it's time to evaluate the risks associated with simply lurking and googling and shopping and carrying a phone in my pocket.

When the FBI director and the CEO of Facebook put tape over their laptop webcams, it's time to recognize that a piece of electrical tape is just the start of reasonable precautions. To what end am I willing to go to fight for my identity? Is duckduckgo enough? Quit Amazon? Airplane mode constantly? TOR (flawed technologically and pervasively infiltrated)? Pay for a private VPN? Set up my own? Is it worth the effort to conceal the fact that I might be a "F**king rich white male", an infidel, a member of the LGBT community, a prime target for burglary, a Muslim subject to a potential national registry - a thought that gives me serious historical heebeegeebees. I might be any one or none of those things, but a few simple algorithms over my browser history or external hard drive will pick out some juicy labels.

The direction of the technology and the "mood" of the country with all its divisiveness and derision, it's a lollapalooza of risk to personal safety. Holding an opinion, even temporarily, can subject you to becoming a target. So - yeah - go dark. Be who you are and do what you do, but with a level of anonymity that makes you feel comfortable. It's a logical step, especially with the launch of your new business. But I'll be damned if I'm not going to take a moment to mourn the loss of your voice. Not really for me, because I've read it all twice, but for everyone else in the world who won't be able to benefit from your industrious output of high quality life lessons. The chilling effect that's forcing you to reach for a blanket: I hope it doesn't freeze us all in the coming decades.

"Better to hear the quiet words of a wise person than the shouts of a foolish king." - but what happens when the wise person refuses to speak?

Psst. Hey. Joshua.

This is fantastic. Aaron and I will have to give you a call sometime because there's news on that front. I plan on writing about it when we are a little further down the line but the problem is explaining it without stepping into the emotional minefield that is this election given the insanity of a significant minority of the electorate at the moment. I'm trying to find a way to balance being open about our motivations while simultaneously not triggering a distracting amount of hate mail given that I don't have time to deal with it at the moment.

Hey Josh, the number you used to call me a while back goes to K-G & Co. Is there a better way to reach you?

I had a recent epiphany moment; it was when I was writing my best man speech for a friend that I have known since middle school. About four weeks before the wedding, I was turning a question over and over in my head. It was, "How did we remain such good friends for so long; while other friendships faded?" Then one morning, while I was drinking some coffee and driving to work it hit me; our friendship is strong and has lasted for over 10 years not because of the similar interests we share, but from the underlying value's we hold. It made me think of the value's I hold dearest to me, and defining them.

It made me more critical of other people's actions, as well as mine. The words people use and the actions they make reveal their own code of ethics. I've always been self-conscious, but after that moment I became even more aware of my own actions, and how they effect other people and how I want to project myself in the future.

I've had others regarding my health and wealth, but they did not seem complete. It is hard to explain, but I think it is still premature; as in I think I am still creating and building up this new and upcoming "epiphany".

My epiphany was that people's irrational concerns/fears/beliefs must be attended to as seriously as their rational concerns/fears/beliefs.

We seem to understand this when dealing with children, but lose this insight when dealing with adults, erroneously assuming they should be immune to all irrational beliefs.

My second, much later, epiphany was the above is true for my own irrational beliefs, that was a tough one to sallow.

One of the things I've always been amazed by is how the power of something is reduced when it is named. A lot of times, when you look at a situation and ask yourself, "What, specifically, is causing me fear? What am I afraid is going to happen?" and then follow that up with, "What is the worst outcome if that comes to pass" and "What can I do to mitigate or accept it given the costs or resources involved?" how easily things tend to sort themselves. It has away of burning away superstition and irrationality like sunshine evaporates fog.

One epiphany I had as a kid was the varying ability of different people to embrace discomfort in order to learn a new skill set. It is still amazing to me to see some people who clearly have a lot going for them in some areas of life (say, social or knowledge capital), yet never do as much with it to improve themselves and the world around them as much as some others who arguably have less of those same gifts. I've also noticed that there seem to be different triggers in people's life that can, in a way, unlock their desire/ability to more fully utilize their human capital. One of my friends from college told me a story once - when he was a young boy he was pretty much just your average kid. He did ok in school, but not great. It was the same for sports. One day he got in a horrific car accident when he was walking across the street in his neighborhood. Miraculously, he was left with only one small scar as permanent damage. He said that from that moment forward something happened to him and the way that he thought about himself. He started to exercise much more effort in all areas of his life, which eventually bore fruit.

Been chewing over this question since you first wrote this and one that comes to mind, yet I cannot pinpoint an exact moment in time where the epiphany happened (it was more of a gradual process from general learning where the more I learned, the more humbled I got of how ignorant I am), is to really, really dial back that very human tendency to judge people quickly.

I try very hard - and often times still catch myself failing - to attempt to first understand the point of view of the other side without judgement. It seems like a minor thing, but a whole lot of people seem to not even notice how quickly they jump to judgement and then let that judgement close their minds without ever considering the point of view from someone else's shoes before passing judgement.

I hope this doesn't sound weird, but I had been thinking about you and Aaron, as well as other bloggers whose blogs I read, and hoping you all have been okay in light of the election and other recent events.

Here is my story about an epiphany which changed my life:

One of the most traumatic experiences I went through as a young person was my first big "friend breakup." I was 17. At the time, it totally wrecked my life and precipitated what I could only describe as a nervous breakdown. I was dealing with other mental health issues at the time, but this made everything so much worse.

I have very strong associations with music in relation to certain times in my life, and the song which never fails to trigger a very strong emotional response about this was Tori Amos's "Bells For Her," which is also about a friend breakup which could not be reconciled.

Some years later, I actually went and read some text which came from an interview with Tori Amos about this song. And she went on to talk about how in many situations in our lives, there's "no resolve" as she says it. I won't quote the who thing here, but here is a link to the quote: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/13619/

Reading this, I suddenly had a moment of clarity where I realized that I had been actively seeking out situations of comfortable inertia and stasis, which were always inevitably derailed by sudden changes in my life - a move, a layoff leading to a change in employment, etc. In those situations of comfortable stasis which I always lamented losing, I wasn't growing or evolving as a person. I was basically just getting by, and exerting as little effort as possible to do so. This was huge. I think Gen X may have been the last generation which was taught to expect long-term employment after leaving high school - go to college, get a job, stay with the company until you retire with a gold watch at the age of 65. That just wasn't possible anymore after the turn of the century, and I had to adjust my goals and my expectations in order to deal with this.

I also recently got back in touch with someone who had been a mutual friend back when I was 17 and asked her about the friend with whom I had fallen out. And talking to this person, I realized that for 22 years I had basically idealized a relationship with someone who had turned out to be an abusive, toxic person, and that I had glossed over certain incidents and red flags in my memory which had occurred back when we were young. In cutting off contact so early, I had basically "dodged a bullet," because people with whom she had interacted since then had come off so much worse for the association.

Anyway, I hope that you and your family are well and we all continue to successfully navigate through these chaotic and perilous times.

I got divorced a little over a year ago, and at some point I decided that I would take my ill-gotten freedom and do something with it. I realized that my sense of what was possible was severely limited by the checklist that I had followed up to that point, and that my mourning put me in the right frame of mind to make a major change.

I sold the house, car and everything else that didn't fit in a backpack. I left the US and am traveling with friends, working over wifi. This actually turns out to have much lower monthly costs than my lifestyle in the US, and I've taken the surplus and am building stock positions. I can't take much with me, which makes me a minimalist out of practicality, and also forces me to regularly re-examine my relationship with the collections of atoms I'm toting around.

I've had amazing experiences, including a number of new epiphanies that continue to build upon each other. Many of these revolve around how people live around the world, which increases my gratitude for even simple things. Clean water. Finding food in a place that uses a different alphabet. I've also met more interesting people since I left than I had in the 30 years I was in the US. This tempts me not to come back!

Tldr:
Pain is just a catalyst. You decide the reaction.
Happiness= Reality - expectations.
You can go back to first principles with your life, too.
Your life is a system. Even small tweaks can have enormous impacts.

I had an epiphany during the recent election. I am a Canadian and a visible minority woman. I had just started dating a well-educated, white man. He seemed nice and seemed to really like me and was interested in a long term future together. At several points throughout the election campaign, I learned that he held outright racist and sexist beliefs. I'm not the sensitive type - I don't mean the regular ignorance or indifference that is common and relatively harmless (at least on an individual level - difficult to argue how important is at a society level). I was surprised that a well-educated person in Canada would hold these beliefs, but the true epiphany was that someone like that would want to be in a relationship with a well-educated, independent minority woman and not see how that might be in conflict. He just didn't see that if his views of the "ideal world" came to pass, my lifestyle would actually fail to exist. It was scary.

Thanks Joshua for all that you do. I hope nothing can silence your voice. For the most part (with some relatively rare exceptions), we are warm and welcoming north of the 49th parallel and we would be honored to have you and Aaron join us!

"If you were a minority, particularly black".....stop being silly.

The "Sundown Town" was anti-BLACK policy.

It's not silly it's historically accurate. In California, for example, there were sundown towns that specifically targeted Chinese Americans. (Jean Pfaelzer at the University of Delaware has a book on those particular sundown towns, which I find interesting as a recipient of the recent expansion of marriage equality given that it was actually Chinese men who were the target of the very first discriminatory marriage laws passed in the United States. It seems that not only were they among the first groups thrown under the proverbial bus, everyone likes to forget about it, talking solely about the Loving or Obergefell decisions.) Other sundown towns in different parts of the country targeted Jewish Americans or Mexican immigrants.

Pointing out how widespread this particular practice was, and that it harmed multiple groups to vary degrees depending upon geographic and demographic mix, is not only a more detailed view of what actually occurred, it serves as an important warning.

I have made 104 thousand bucks previous year by doing an on-line job from home and I did that by working part-time f­­o­­r few h /daily. I’m using work model I stumbled upon from company that i found online and I am amazed that i was able to make so much money on the side. It's very user-friendly and I'm just so happy that i learned about it. Here’s what I did... STATICTAB.COM/h8vxywm

I've made 104000 dollars in last 12 months by working online from my house a­n­d I did that by wor­king part-time for several h /day. I followed work opportunity I came across from this website i found online and I am amazed that i was able to make so much extra income. It's so newbie friendly a­n­d I am just so grateful that I found out about it. Check out what I did... STATICTAB.COM/h8vxywm

I've made 104,000 thousand dollars in 2016 by doing an online job and I did that by wor­king in my own time for few h /daily. I followed an earning opportunity I came across from this website i found online and I am amazed that i earned so much extra income. It's newbie-friendly a­­n­­d I'm so blessed that I found out about it. Here is what i did... STATICTAB.COM/8cx4rgs

One of my epiphany moments happened in high school during a mediating course in our project week: We were discussing forms of communication and our external mediator guide showed us a graph, estimating that up to roughly 90% of communication happens nonverbally. Some weeks before, I had learned about the Four-sides model by Schulz von Thun (One of my all-time favorite mental models and probably closely related to signaling theory. For the remainder of my time in high school, I kept a snippet of it pasted on my laptop).

If it´s true that 90% of communication is nonverbal (read "coded“) and, furthermore, that 75% of verbal communication is, in fact, coded as well (assuming equal weighting of the components within the verbal part which could possibly be conservative) leaves us with just about 2.5% of rather clear communication.

It suddenly dawned on me why humanity is systematically exposed to internal misunderstanding and conflict which seems to be nearly impossible to overcome, once you figure in the EBITDA-like character of this number and subtract demographic, religious, cultural and personal differences as well as a variety of other components/effects.

That was one of the catalysts that dragged me to the concept of mental models and made me fall in love with it.

Unrelated and off-topic: I wanted to write a letter to you for a very long time now and I am almost done. Since you are in the process of (or already finished) "pulling up the drawbridge" behind you, I was wondering if my letter would still fall in your hands in case that I send it to one of your companies.