The Longer the Set Up, The Shorter The Shot

Humans are notoriously awful at predicting the 2nd and 3rd order consequences of their actions--for better or worse. A lot of what people describe as “luck” is nothing more than than a 2nd or 3rd order effect playing itself out EXACTLY as it should.

It only seems like luck if you can’t consider further than the immediate reaction of what you’re doing. And remember, most people can’t even think THAT far.

If you don’t know, the “order of reactions” is a cycle of action and reaction. I do something and you do something in return. If life were simple and balanced, it wouldn’t go any further than that. But our actions not only affect other people, but rarely do we lay down in the face of retaliation--even if we deserved it.

This starts another cycle of action and reaction. Now we’re at the 2nd order, but it carries with it all of the collateral and intention from the first order. You can see how this goes on until a fist fight results in a world war or losing a little money results in a global stock market crash.

I don’t wanna bore and depress you with the negative implications of second and third order effects. Rather, I want talk to you about the positives.

The Positive

A great way to appreciate the power of 2nd and 3rd order thinking is to learn how to play chess. It’s a popular misconception that chess masters see further ahead than novices. This is not exactly true. Good chess players assess the situation and make the best move at the moment and that aligns with the plan they’ve come up with for the board situation.

There is still an order of action involved in this style of thinking, but it’s all based around making the best possible move that supports the current plan. This means that you don’t necessarily need to think 50 moves ahead. You don’t even need to think 5 moves ahead.

You just need to think about if an action is the best possible way to support a goal given all of the information available. You just need to think one order ahead, but with awareness of the situation at hand.

This may simple and short-sighted, but let me discuss politics for a moment. Trump protesters thought that by showing up at his rallies, they would gain support. Maybe they did, but what they did a LOT more of was put Trump in the news.

I don’t do politics. I do strategy. From a purely strategic standpoint, protesting his rallies was an error. This is a chess move that seems like it achieves the goals of the plan, but it does not consider what will happen in response to it. This was failure on the first order and of awareness of the situation.

How to Use This Information in 2019

Make plans, stick to them, but be flexible. Be flexible because the board situation may change, revealing a new target. I was just giving an interview today where I discussed this. 5 years ago I went to college with the plan to get some job in finance or science. Or I’d box until I made a few million and invest it.

Well I went as far as I could go with boxing, which wasn't far enough to make millions. It was barely thousands.. Then I realized that my writing was enjoyable to people and I wasn’t too bad at marketing. I still finished my physic's degree, but I started making moves to make a living writing, selling, and ultimately creating.

You’re on this list because I started making moves to support that game plan. Even now, I’m almost finished with a new course on building and developing more courses and writing even more. This is how the best moves continually get made--by constantly incorporating the best information.

Make the best moves in 2019. Even if you can’t make the ones with the furthest vision into the future.

The rest is up to you.