READER: Peter, you wrote that "Tactical, strategic, business and political senses are harder to acquire. Parents would be making a mistake if they assumed their kids can learn these four senses at school." Can you elaborate?
PETER: I've met kids of wealthy parents who apparently lacked those four senses, so a successful parent may have those four senses without knowing how to teach them to his children. On the other hand, parents of low socioeconomic status or from the middle class could, if they wanted to, encourage their kids to value learning and thinking so that they can develop their tactical, strategic, business and political senses. The bottom line is that a parent cannot teach what he/she has not been able to achieve. Financial freedom, entrepreneurship, the design of a creative and fulfilling career, etc. cannot be taught by a parent if he/she has not been able to achieve it in his/her own life.
READER: You wrote that "There is an eleventh sense, which is very difficult to acquire: the sense of who we naturally are and, by extension, who we are destined to become." What do you mean?
PETER: If you're clay, then you know that you could be shaped into a pot. A nice-looking pot! If you're marble, you know that you could become a great-looking statue. In other words, who you can become is only a particular shape or manifestation (in physical / temporal format) of who you already are. We are all destined to become very useful or very aesthetic (i.e. useful to a higher sense, the spiritual sense) "objects" in the world. Most people are stuck at the "raw materials" stage: they are amorphous lumps of clay or a raw piece of lumber. They don't become refined into a useful or aesthetic object that could occupy a special place in the world. They remain a part of the "they" and never become a unique "I."
This is why pursuing an "ideal" career is vital (download the free Ideal Career report at www.idealcareerframework.com -- password is "idealcareerisideal"). A person should choose a career where she will feel growth, and will feel that she is becoming her best self. Remember what Leonardo Da Vinci said when someone asked him what his greatest achievement was. He replied: "Leonarda Da Vinci."
READER: You wrote that "Without this 11th sense, a person has no "I" and merely becomes a part of "they" -- the crowd where everybody thinks alike and obeys the same fears." Why do people think alike and obey the same fears? What can I do to develop my 11th sense?
PETER: The Industrial Revolution has brought about great benefits but has somehow also created many threats. People have come to believe they are just part of the "masses." The educational system, the factory, the mass media, etc. are all based on the fundamental idea that people are not unique but are part of like-thinking groups. Indeed, it would be too hard for society's institutions to treat people as "unique human beings." Even corporate employers treat people as mere human resources (not resourceful humans). The ultimate proof that people think alike in very unoriginal ways, is that people rarely come up with new ideas.
Think about the conversations you've had with people in your life over the last few weeks. How many new ideas have been voiced by people you know? People are not really thinking anything new, and THIS is the fundamental reason why they can never achieve financial independence. If you always think the same thoughts, you will keep getting the same income.
This is why it's so important for financial freedom seekers to network and meet new people, in order to have new conversations. Without change and new stimulation, something inside us sleeps and rarely awakens. The mysterious thing that does not awaken is our "soul," which is powerful enough to create all the wealth imaginable.
If you think originally, you dramatically increase your chances of becoming financially independent. That's because financial independence depends critically on mental independence. Yet, most people are literally incapable of formulating new thoughts or new ideas. Like Einstein said, they merely "rearrange their old prejudices."
To learn how to think originally, one only has to pick up a copy of Lateral Thinking by Dr Edward de Bono, or The Six Thinking Hats, also by the same author, and then practice again and again and again what Dr de Bono teaches.
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