Find the Magical Keys that will blow away the clouds over your mind - Learn the lessons that the great people knew. Each one is a key -- from a book being prepared by David Burns, “THE MASTER's KEY RING ”

THE FIRST KEY: Know your own business or artistic terrain to the max. Specialize. Bone up on it. Make certain that if anyone comes at you with a question, you know the answer! If they do and you don’t, you didn’t bone up enough. General George Patton said: “In order for a man to become a great soldier…it is necessary for him to be so thoroughly conversant with all sorts of military possibilities that whenever an occasion arises, he has at hand, without effort on his part, he has a parallel. To attain this end….it is necessary… to read military history in its earliest and hence crudest form and to follow it down in natural sequence permitting his mind to grow with his subject until he can grasp without effort the most abstruse question of the science of war because he is already permeated with all its elements.”  So if you can see the enemy’s intent and realize it’s what Hannibal was doing when he crossed the Alps, because you’re up on your subject, you’re armed for bear. You’ve done your homework. In other wordsgetting beat by the enemy shouldn’t be a source of shame, it’s getting SURPRISED by anything the enemy DOES.

Following this precept, Patton read widely in military history all his life, a practice that was fundamental for his later success. His knowledge of warfare in the past, his acquaintance with actual problems of battlefields distant in time, and his study of historical commanders enhanced his own leadership. Instantly aware of all the options involved in coming to a decision, he could choose the boldest course because he knew what the great ones had done. 

General Patton knew the next war would not be fought like the last one. The enemy will try to find something new, something novel, to shock, and conquer us. We must “expect the unexpected”. That’s the bad news. There is good news, however. “There’s nothing new under the sun.” If we do our homework, and collect the keys, the answers to the problems of the past, we can apply them to whatever is coming at us. Then we’re armed and dangerous; ready for anything!

SECOND KEY Solving problems consists of finding problems analogous to the ones we’re trying to solve. From Arthur Koestler’s “The Act of Creation” “Discovery consists in seeing an analogy which nobody had seen before. Discovery often means simply the uncovering of something that has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.” What we’re used to doing doesn’t seem to work any more; we find ourselves spinning our wheels; expending voluminous effort, while experiencing a dimunition of returns……which leads us to an… As we attack and eliminate our blind spots, bringing to view “idee fixe”, we stumble upon a “Fundamental Novelty” – something simple and profound, which makes a critical difference, like Pasteur’s “germ theory”. Often that can be found thru asking pals to critique your work or concepts or plans. At least let them play backboard to the mental handball, play Devil’s advocate for you.

Peter Drucker – one of our greatest business/management gurus describes an Entrepeneur as one who milks greater yield from existing resources. The meditative mind is frequently more able to come up with an ‘AHA!’ than the mind going full tilt. Great thinkers should dig in the garden, or wash the car, the garage floor, the shelves, the kitchen walls, the dishes, mindless work which allows the lightbulbs to go on over our heads.

THIRD KEY: STUDY THE WORDS of the GREAT ONES AND MEMORIZE THEIR TEACHINGS. A quick and easy way to do that is get a dollar copy of BARTLETT’s QUOTATIONS, online, used from ABEBOOKS.com “I like to have quotations ready for every occasion – they give one ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one’s feelings.” - Robert Burns – from “The Scottish Quotation Book” My SECRETS of USING ABES to get books super inexpensively….

Chinese proverb: “Good sayings are a string of pearls.” The French call it the mot juste – the word that fits the thought, like a key fits a lock. That’s what a poet does…specialize in “keywords”. If others have said it better, why bother trying to top them? Simply collect the Ring of Keys, and apply them aptly to any current situation. We follow Shakespeare’s lead, “brevity is the soul of wit”], and collect the great quotes, proverbs, aphorisms, maxims, bon mots, so that we have the answers at hand. They’re light and portable, and potent, adding light, heat and great richness to our lives. We can even invent our own one day.

ß------- BACK TO THE MONEY SECRETS PAGE

ß------- BACK TO THE GUERILLA CAPITALISM INDEX PAGE

<------- BACK TO THE SPECTRUM OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES WEBPAGE

ß------- BACK TO THE FRUGAL INDEX