The Psychological Significance of the Bible Stories: David and Goliath

Stories in the Bible are compelling because they are packed with multiple layers of meaning. One reason for this is that the Bible stories describe reality on different levels at the same time. 

Christians are already familiar with how the Bible describes the realities of the spiritual realm. We are made aware of how we can either yield ourselves to the influence of God and angels in the kingdom of heaven or to the devil and demons in the kingdom of darkness. There’s no middle ground. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. In the David and Goliath story, David was victorious because he was under the influence of God’s Kingdom and Goliath lost because he wasn’t. It couldn’t be any simpler.

The same David and Goliath story describes the realities of an “objective”, physical realm. In a talk he did years ago, Malcolm Gladwell, the bestselling New York Times journalist, gave an account of the David and Goliath story from another perspective. According to Gladwell, Goliath had a medical condition known as acromegaly which is the result of the overproduction of growth hormones by the pituitary gland in the brain. People with acromegaly have enlarged body parts and may experience symptoms such as impaired vision and limited mobility. If he indeed had acromegaly with its attendant symptoms, Malcolm Gladwell argued that from the onset of the face-off with David, Goliath was doomed to suffer defeat. The lesson here is that physical advantages can spell your doom in another context. As the Yoruba people say, The hand of a child cannot reach the ceiling, the hand of an adult cannot enter a gourd. 

The Bible stories also describe the world of phenomena perceived from the viewpoint of subjective human consciousness and experience. Indeed, despite the conflict between science and religion, the Bible still remains the oldest psychological book. This post will be unpacking some of the psychological insights compressed into the David and Goliath story.

Whoever Controls the Frames, Holds the Power

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Let’s imagine a scenario with two men. The first man, Mr. A, is well-to-do and has 4 cars, while Mr. B has only 1 car. If you were to give both men an additional car each, which man will be happier? Studies have suggested that Mr. B will feel a greater amount of happiness than Mr. A. Similarly, if you were to take one car away each from both men, Mr. B will feel more pain than Mr. A.

But that leaves an important question: Why would both men feel a different degree of happiness (or sadness) when the same number of cars is given (or taken away) from them? The reason is fairly straightforward. Both men are in different initial states. In other words, they have different frames of reference. Mr. A already has 4 cars, so giving or taking away one car from his collections is not going to affect his happiness much. On the other hand, taking away one car from Mr. B is likely to be hurtful to him because that will mean that he no longer has a car. And when you give Mr. B a car, his happiness will be great because you have literally doubled the number of cars he has!

People’s behaviors in a particular context are dependent on the frames of reference that are active in that context. In the presence of food, a man who just arrived from a dinner date will behave very differently from a man who hasn’t had anything to eat in the past three days. Similarly, on a hot day, the individual who has been indoors all day will not drink as much water as the individual who just came back from a run. Frames of reference even change rapidly from moment to moment. That explains, for instance, why the first bite you take while eating a meal is more satisfying than subsequent bites. At each moment, you’re in a different place, psychologically speaking.

In the David and Goliath story, you find that Goliath held psychological power over the Israelites because he changed everyone’s frames of reference. Even though the Israelites were in the same physical place with the Philistine soldiers, the two armies were in different psychological spaces.

Under normal circumstances, opposing armies simply arranged themselves in position and fought. Every soldier knew his tactical and strategic roles, as well as what was expected of him. What constituted victory and defeat was clear and members of the opposing factions conducted themselves accordingly.

By changing the rules of engagement, Goliath redefined the criteria for victory and defeat. Rather than fight in a war where victory was determined by the military savviness of the warring armies, Goliath wanted man-on-man combat:

Choose a man for yourselves and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will become your servants; but if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall become our servants and serve us.” Again the Philistine said, “I defy the battle lines of Israel this day; give me a man so that we may fight together.” 

The amazing part of this story is not just Goliath’s 9-foot frame or the sophistication of his weapons. Rather, it is the fact that he dictated the frames of reference for everyone on the battleground and everyone behaved as though they agreed – consciously or unconsciously. No one engaged according to the rules of combat they were already familiar with. Rather everyone, particularly the Israelites, were paralyzed into a state of passive compliance.

As an interesting comparison, when you place an animal in an unfamiliar space – before it starts to sniff around for threats and opportunities – it freezes in a state of inaction. This is the observation that informs the colloquial expression, “Looking like a deer caught in the headlights”. By controlling the frames of reference, Goliath took the Israelites to a place they were unfamiliar with. And when you are in a place you are unfamiliar with, you will look like a deer caught in the headlights. That’s why whoever controls the frames of reference in an interaction wields the power in that interaction.

Also worthy of note is how God inspired David to defeat Goliath by the same rules that the behemoth had laid out. Just as Goliath had changed the rules of combat and took the Israelite army into unknown territory, David also changed the frames for Goliath.

And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”

As Malcolm Gladwell noted in the talk referenced earlier, Goliath expected to engage in close combat with whoever came forward to fight for the honor of the Israelites. That had been the implicit terms of the frames of reference he had laid out for the battle.

Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him….

The last thing Goliath expected was to have a projectile hurled towards his forehead at speed from distance. Yet, that was exactly what happened as he embarked on a one-way trip to a psychological space foreign to him. The tables had turned and now, it was Goliath’s “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” moment from which he could never recover.

Error is Variation and You Need More in Your Life

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In a previous post, I talked about how the life of the average person in the 21st century is devoid of variation. Individuals who permit variation in their lives are more likely to encounter alternative histories with potentially life-changing outcomes. They are the ones likely to forge quality relationships at a networking event. They are the ones likely to come in contact with paradigm-shifting ideas that could revolutionize entire fields and industries.

When we think about David’s life leading up to the encounter with Goliath, we find that the kind of life he led afforded him the opportunity to incorporate variation into his day-to-day existence.

But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem

David occasionally left the routine, security, and predictability of the king’s palace to confront the unknown as a shepherd in the wilderness. As a result, David was exposed to more variability than he would never have encountered in a controlled environment like in the city. 

For instance, at some point, David would have had to care for numerous sheep who may have gotten injured or sick at unpredictable times. Despite this not happening every day, the occurrence of sickness or injury to sheep in a flock remained within the realm of possibilities. Because these events could not be predicted ahead of time, David must have developed the skills necessary for taking care of a sheep when it was sick or injured.

In the same vein, David was exposed to the uncertain weather elements as he discharged his duties in the wilderness. Since there were no meteorological devices at the time, David needed to be ready for the possibility of sudden weather changes. As soon as the first raindrops fell from the sky, David had to find a way to get himself and the sheep under the shelter. Again, weather changes are always a possibility, even if they do not happen all the time. Over time, David must have developed the skills for coordinating his father’s sheep in response to sudden changes in the elements.

Finally, David was more likely to encounter wild animals in the wilderness than within the protected walls of the city. Note that hungry predators do not announce their intentions in advance. Rather, they all show up without any prior warning. In response to the possibilities of attack, David must have developed self-defense skills to keep himself and the sheep safe as they roamed the wilderness.

Indeed, life is like a series of games with different rules running at the same time. The more wide-ranging your skills are, the higher your probabilities of winning a good number of these games. You are equipped with the wide-ranging skills necessary for winning only when you are willing to confront the unknown by incorporating variation in your life. 

Leaders are not Born, They are Shaped

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Humans have the ability to categorize things into groups based on their similarity. Broadly speaking, people that have the same physical features can be said to belong to the same racial group. Fluorine, Chlorine, and, Iodine, are all elements possessing overlapping chemical and physical properties. As a result, they are said to belong to the same chemical group. This tendency for categorization is not limited to just tangibles, such as physical appearances or chemical compositions, but also our experiences. Experiences that make us feel a particular way are perceived by the mind as belonging to the same category.

In his conversation with King Saul, notice how David lumped the dead lion, the dead bear and a still living Goliath into the same category:

But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep his father’s sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth; and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.” Moreover David said, “The Lord, who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

David could not have been confident in his ability to defeat Goliath if he had not gotten the experience of defeating the lion and bear. Likewise, there was no way David would have defeated the violent beasts of prey if he had not been exposed to the possibility of such events in the wilderness. Indeed, the most dependable people in times of crisis are those who have habitually confronted the unknown with courage over time.

Many people desire victory over the Goliaths that rear up their ugly faces in their lives. Unfortunately, they cannot recall a single event where they confronted the unknown and emerged victorious. This is because they have no experiences in their histories that fall into that category of personal victories. All they have ever done is run away from the slightest scent of discomfort. As a result, such people will produce that famed “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” reaction when faced with uncertainty.

It has been said that leaders are not born, they are forged. Exceptional leaders are shaped into what they are, by the gradual, repeated exposure to various situations where the odds are stacked heavily against them. David did not just wake up overnight with the confidence to confront Goliath. On the contrary, that confidence had been shaped into him by the events that played out in the wilderness. The comparatively ‘smaller’ victories God gave David over the bear and the lion created experiences that could be categorized into his mind as the same thing. Consequently, as David faced Goliath, all he saw was another event waiting to be filed into his category of personal victories. And that’s exactly what played out.

How to be the Wisest One in the Room: Maps, Circles, and Axioms

In the beginning, all that existed was God – the peerless Personification of perfection, pulchritude and perception. At the appointed kairos time, God acted out the model for moving to a desired state of being from an undesired one. With the Logos, He pried out specific order out of multiple alternative histories combating for preeminence in a soup of potentialities. We call these multiple alternative histories chaos. Then, God looked at the order He had created and said it was good.

At all levels of existence – individual, familial, societal – people desire to be in a state of being that is an improvement on their current states, whatever that might be. For many people, however, this state remains in the realm of uncrystallized potential. Why? People have learned to tolerate the status quo and shy away from whatever better state there might be.

The wisest one in the room is the person who can move from an undesired current state to a more desired one. They follow God’s model by stepping into a situation, taming chaos, and extracting order from it. The wisest ones are those who can crystallize gestalts of meaning from the fogs of potential. This is not necessarily easy, as life’s complicated and there are billions of ways that issues and events can be arranged in your mind to make sense of them. Many of these arrangements will not make your life’s experiences any better, and some might even make matters worse – just ask the nihilists and rationalists! That said, there are also specific attitudes of perception that will put you in the right frame to dissolve chaos, while bringing you closer to that state God has prepared for you. Three of them are discussed in this article.

1. Be Humble Enough to Understand that Your Map is Not the Territory

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Your worldview is built on certain assumptions that may be very different from reality. For instance, sentences in English and many similar languages are in the form of actor-action. The unspoken assumption of such languages is that an act can never occur in the absence of an actor. Hence, we have sentences like “The rain is falling”, where the rain is an actor carrying out the action of falling. Contrast that with the Hopi language, where an action can occur without an actor acting anything out. When the Hopi speaker describes the phenomenon of rainfall, he simply says “Raining”. He is not concerned with what caused the rain to fall. Unlike his English-speaking counterpart, the underlying assumption of the Hopi speaker makes him focus on the meaning of an event, rather than on its cause!

Which language do you think has the upper hand in describing reality? The honest answer is that we do not know. English and Hopi are both valid languages that describe aspects of reality. None is better than the other. English prevents you from seeing the significance of a phenomenon, and Hopi may kill your curiosity about causal factors at the roots of that phenomenon. Yet, reality has both causes and meanings that extend beyond our perceptions. The wisest one in the room is humble enough to acknowledge that he may hold assumptions blinding him to certain aspects of reality.

When making a physical map, cartographers assume that critters, trees, rocks, electric poles and grasses are a constant occurrence wherever you go. As a result, these details are never depicted, despite being present in the territory that is being mapped. In the same way, as you navigate through life, your maps about the operations of the world are riddled with assumptions that pervert your perceptions from seeing reality.

Note that assumptions are not always all bad or useless. The world we live in is complex and events do not fall into neat categories. Hence, assumptions can be useful in helping the mind act more efficiently. The brain does this by lumping things that are similar into the same categories. This enables us to focus our attention and resources on the information that matters: threats and opportunities. Without assumptions, we’d all be in a state of action paralysis, as we’d have to expend mental effort determining whether every information is a threat or an opportunity – regardless of whether they are familiar or not.

In what Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher, called the View from Nowhere, there is an objective reality that describes the inherent nature of things. I prefer to call this the “View from God’s Perspective”. On its own, no human mind will ever see this objective View from Nowhere. This is because we all approach reality through our maps which have been shaped by our experiences in our pasts. The consequence is that when your girlfriend says, “Let’s be objective”, what she’s really seeking out is consensus by agreement, not objectivity! The same thing plays out in every kind of human interaction.

Understanding that the Map is not the Territory is a superpower that accomplishes two things: First, it makes you more humble. Solomon, the original philosopher-king, wrote, “Surely He [God] scorns the scornful, but gives grace to the humble”. Humility is coming to the realization that you really do not know everything, and all you know has been shaped by your own map. Those who choose to be the know-it-alls and sophisticates will inevitably encounter the humbling curveballs that life throws at them. The humble, on the other hand, “will inherit the earth”. As it were, the survival of the fittest is in reality the survival of the most humble. Secondly, when you recognize that the Map is not the Territory, you become more open-minded and understanding of others. You start to see that others do not know everything too. You begin to understand that their motivations and perceptions are only shaped by the maps with which they see the world.

Today, there are not many people who are willing to accept that the maps with which they see the world can be outdated or wrong. Such people are married to their maps and have formed an emotional bond with it. They will defend the rightness of their maps with every fiber of their being. On the other hand, those who will thrive in uncertain or novel terrains share one characteristic: They are all individuals who are humble enough and willing to accept that their maps may be wrong. As a result, they are better able to learn and adapt to new terrains and survive.

2. Know the Boundaries of your Circle of Competence. If you don’t have any, find one

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As a human being, you neither have the luxury of time nor resources to be the master of all domains. However, because people have different histories and past experiences, there are fields of endeavor where they can choose and learn to thrive in their element. The reason is fairly straightforward. People who are in their circle of competence have often already devoted sufficient time and effort in their pasts to be proficient in their domains. Problems arise for the individual that tries to compete in a domain where he has zero competence. Such persons end up being crushed into oblivion. It’s nothing personal, it’s just the way the world works. Therefore, a major task in your life is to identify that domain where your history and past experiences can give you a comparative advantage. It’s your responsibility to “[b]e fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…” in your domain of competence.

If you have not identified your domain of competence, here are a few useful recommendations:

First, you can hone into a specific fragment of a broad field and/or dig deep into the foundations upon which that fragment is built. Most people do not have the patience, resources, discipline, or time to commit to such depths. However, by applying yourself to this method, you can have a relatively easy path to creating your circle of competence. In the broad automobile industry, companies such as Lamborghini or Rolls Royce are not just in the business of manufacturing cars. Rather, they remain profitable by staying focused on a specific slice of the automobile market – those interested in luxury cars. Such is the impact of finding and sticking to your domain of competence.

Alternatively, you can explore the overlaps that exist between unrelated domains of endeavor. One of the reasons why life can be complicated is that events are more interconnected than humans acknowledge. These overlaps have been criminally under-investigated and there is a big demand for people who are willing to devote the time, resources and mental effort to identify associations between fields that appear to be unrelated. As an example, Norbert Wiener investigated the overlaps between mathematics, physiology, engineering and psychology to develop a whole new field of cybernetics and control theory.

Furthermore, you can create your circle of competence by reproducing ideas that are geographically or chronologically separated from you. For instance, there are certain commonplace ideas, goods and services in 3rd-world countries that are highly desirable in developed countries, and vice versa. The same thing plays out when you consider the differences between rural and urban areas. Another area that is commonly overlooked is the past. A common assumption among people living in an epoch is that their generation has an overall better quality of life than previous generations. This is not necessarily the case. In fact, it can be argued that there are areas of contemporary life that are worse than that of previous generations. Nonetheless, this kind of ‘chronological superiority’ makes people in a generation disregard beneficial ideas and innovations from the past. As in other cases, you can create your circle of competence by visiting the past and extracting ideas that can be of service to your generation. Stoicism is an idea from Ancient Greece that has received a new lease of life in the past 5 years. There are tons of similar ideas that are waiting to be unearthed.

The wisest one in the room is the individual who has identified his circle of competence. Whenever he’s faced with problems that fall within his domain, he rises up to the challenge and solves them. And when the problem is outside his reach, he is not afraid to defer them to others better suited to solve them. That probably explains the following tongue-in-cheek remark from the wisest king who ever lived: “Even a fool is counted wise when he holds his peace; When he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive”. 

3. Learn the Power of First-Principles Thinking

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The complications that often arise in life are usually because our unknown unknowns exceed our known unknowns. In other words, the things we do not know we are ignorant of are more than the things we know we are ignorant of. To untangle these complications, we have to identify the assumptions upon which these issues are built. Some of the assumptions mapped onto an issue are a function of the individual’s personal history and experiences. Nevertheless, there are other assumptions that can remain central and true to an issue, regardless of the individual’s past experiences, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or religion. These central assumptions are referred to as axioms. The more common name is “first principles”.

In a conversation with His disciples about the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven…” In other words, access to certain aspects of reality will be obscured from you until you are possessed with the spirit of a child. Consider, as an example, the curiosity of a child. Due to their inquisitive nature, children question answers till they arrive at a point where they are satisfied. When you give a child a meaningful answer, you’d better be prepared to go on a journey that’s at least 4 – 5 layers deep to satisfy them. This is because each of your answers will be met with the response, ‘Why?’. As children grow up, however, they learn to conflate childishness with childlikeness in the name of appearing mature. They stop asking ‘Why?’ A natural consequence of this is the propagation of dangerous narratives, ideas and ideologies as people no longer have a willingness to question anything. First-principles thinking is a return to this childlikeness.

Broadly speaking, the ability to engage in first principles thinking is useful in at least two ways.

First, it can be useful in helping you untangle complicated problems. A classic example of how first principles are used to resolve complicated issues can be found in the way the Allied forces handled the 1945 Nuremberg trials.

Prior to the end of World War 2, the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by Nazi Germans on Jews were not known. With victory secured for the Allied Forces (Britain, Soviet Russia, France, China and the US) after the surrender of the Nazi leaders in 1945, the horrors of life at the Nazi concentration camps became widely published. However, a complication came up. There were no international guidelines for trying war crimes on the scale of those perpetuated by Nazi Germany. Although everyone knew the Nazi leaders had sanctioned orders that left carnage and destruction in its wake, there were no laws that classified such actions as crimes. As a result, the Nazi leaders could defend their actions by claiming “…where no law is, there is no trangression. Furthermore, trying the German war criminals according to Soviet laws could potentially raise issues with the US or Britain. Trials based on US or British laws could also raise the same concerns among other members of the Allied Forces. 

To resolve this, members of the Nuremberg tribunal had to think in terms of first principles. They identified and agreed upon the fundamental assumptions a person must hold before he could sanction the execution of war crimes on a population group. Once this was settled, prosecuting the Nazi German leaders became more straightforward.

The second way that first-principles thinking can be useful is when you are interested in testing whether the maps with which you navigate through life are obsolete or incomplete. As we’ve already established, many people’s outlook on life is informed by the stories and narratives that have been passed on to them from other people in their lives. Because stories are very compelling, few people take the time to question the assumptions that power such narratives. Like a child clutching on to his toy, people learn to see the narratives as their own – refusing to part ways with them. In this state, anyone who doesn’t share the same narrative is seen as the enemy. It’s no wonder that we live in interesting times where people are divided along ideological lines. This is a dangerous place to be in. When one learns how to engage in first principles thinking, it becomes easy to identify and avoid narratives that are built on wrong foundations. Here’s the bitter truth: Unless people take the time to ask themselves the uncomfortable questions about the assumptions powering their ideologies or worldviews, we can expect a future of friction and division.

The wisest ones in the room are those are refuse to be distracted by irrelevancies obscuring the first-principles upon which an issue rests. They are the ones who are comfortable with asking ‘Why?’ until it hurts, and then some. These ones embrace their childlike curiosity and inquisitiveness for the purpose of getting to the roots of an issue. Because of their willingness to do this, they are rewarded with the lucidity that eludes the yes-men and echo chambers. They access raw wisdom and enter the kingdom of heaven – starting from here on earth!

Three Big Ideas: On Paper, Deliberate Practice, and, Consistency

Big Idea #1 From Me

In the days of old, paper was a scarce commodity because of the amount of sheer effort that went into producing it.

Back then, if you had access to paper, it was because you had something worth writing about. And because you didn’t want to waste paper, you had to give sufficient thought to whatever you were going to write.

This is one big reason a lot of classic books are very dense in meaning – paper was hard to come by and only the highest quality ideas and thoughts were ever transcribed. (If you are a Christian, this will make you appreciate the Bible more)

To be educated meant two things: (1) You could give considerable thought to your ideas before condensing them to words written on scarce paper. (2) You could also unpack the meanings in the dense words and expound upon these meanings in a way that the common man could grasp.

In fact, the root word for educate is the Latin word “educere” which describes the process of drawing one thing out of another. In other words, if you were not skilled at extracting actionable meaning from condensed words, you were not educated.

Today, the story is very different.

The abundance of paper, and later word processors, and now the internet, means that though more people can read and write, fewer and fewer people are educated in the original sense of the word. That explains why there is an abundance of low-quality information, ideas and books out there – particularly in the past 20 – 30 years.

The world is filled with mindless readers and writers who live like programmed robots executing the same poorly-written line of code. Very few people are giving considerable time to their thoughts before they dispense them into cyberspace. In any case, even fewer people are willing to use their heads for more than a hat rack. The vast majority of people are only interested in viral tweets and the latest scandal in town. 

Understand this: There is a whole realm of possibilities available to the ones who choose to break away from conformity to mediocrity and become educated. These are the people who understand that we’re in a battle of words, and only the ones who have a mastery of words will win.

Big Idea #2 From Research

In their classic 1993 article, The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance, Anders Ericsson and his colleagues were interested in uncovering the factors that distinguished elite performers from the “just okay” performers.

In one of their studies which focused on violin players, Ericsson and his colleagues discovered two major differences between the elite violinists and the “just okay” violinists. 

First, the elite violinists saw practice very differently from the “just okay” violinists. For the “just okay” violinists, every opportunity they had to play the violin was considered practice. That means that if they were playing to relax, or playing for an audience, or playing songs they already knew by heart – all these were considered as practice. 

On the other hand, the elite violinists’ perception of practice was very different. They did not see playing for an audience, or playing in the “zone” as enough to improve their performance. Their approach was to spend a relatively short burst of time, say 60 – 90 minutes, on specific activities that improved their level of performance. The elites were not practicing merely for the fun of it. Neither were they repeating things they already knew. Rather, they were painfully concentrating on the weaker aspects of their performance, getting feedback, and using that feedback to improve their performance. They usually did not enjoy this form of practice, but went on with it because they knew it would make them better.

Second, the elite violin players slept more than the “just okay” group. This is something that athletes understand perfectly. Because of the constraints of the human body, one should not practice hard things indefinitely. Doing so will only increase the probabilities of injury and failure. After a burst of intensity, you need time to rest. In addition to helping you recover from your efforts, resting has been empirically shown to consolidate what you have learned into your memory. This makes it much easier to recall the new skill when the need arises.

My key takeaway is how this paper throws a wrench into the 10,000-hour rule popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book – Outliers. Incidentally, Gladwell got the idea of 10,000 hours of practice by reading Ericsson’s paper. What he left out from the book, however, was the type of practice you should be doing in those 10,000 hours. If you are staying in your comfort zone, simply repeating something you are already familiar with, you will never reach elite levels in your domain of expertise. On the other hand, if you spend just 30 minutes a day deliberately improving upon a specific weakness in your skillset, you could reach the top of your niche in no time.

Big Idea #3 From Bible

1 Peter 2:21 – 22 says, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth

In the personal development space, one of the traits touted for success in life is consistency. As a writer, you are encouraged to keep writing, day-in-day-out. If you are an athlete, you are told to show up for training everyday. If you are into sales, you must continue to market your products and services in order to make the breakthrough. 

While viewing consistency in this way is useful, there’s another side of consistency that is overlooked.

Jesus Christ is described as having no guile. This does not just imply that He always told the truth. It also means there was a union, or if you want – a consistency, between His thoughts, His beliefs and His words.

There is a reason we are drawn to authentic people. It’s not because they are paragons of virtue (although they may be). Neither is it because they are charismatic (although they may be). Rather, it is because we can listen to them and conclude, “I’m getting all of this person – nothing more, nothing less”. We weigh their words and find them void of guile and pretense.

I’ve come to realize something simple about life: When there is a consistency between your beliefs, your thoughts and your words, every sentence you speak is backed with conviction and power. It also follows that the greater the divide between your words and your beliefs, the weaker your position in life. Christians understand this principle when it comes to the place of prayer, but fail to apply it to other aspects of their lives.

This week, I encourage you to try this simple exercise: Before you say anything, ask yourself, “Do I really believe this?” Like most people, you may be shocked with how inconsistent the various parts of your essence really are.

The Zidane Effect, Kairos, and, Alternative Histories

In the dying minutes of the 2006 World Cup final match between France and Italy, Italian defender Marco Materazzi had grabbed at the shirt of French player, Zinedane Zidane.

Disgusted, Zidane told Materazzi, “If you want my shirt so much, I’d give it to you afterward”

Materazzi replied, “I’d prefer the whore that is your sister!”

That was all it took to set Zidane off.

He made the decision to butt the Italian defender Marco Materazzi in the chest, got himself sent off for violent conduct, and France went on to lose the match after a penalty shootout.

Here’s the million-dollar question: Would France have won if Zidane hadn’t gotten the red card?

We’ll get back to that. First, let’s lay the groundwork.

I. The 8th Wonder of the World

Albert Einstein, the 20th-century theoretical physicist known for his theory of relativity, is said to have quipped, “Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it; he who doesn’t pays it.” 

There are two things wrong with that quote. First, there’s no evidence that Albert Einstein ever said that. Einstein died in 1955 and the first appearance of that quote was in 1983. Two, there are 2 other forces in the physical universe that are infinitely more powerful than compound interest: They are Time and Probabilities.

A short, ancient Hebrew book, called the Qoheleth, introduces these two forces as the cause of every phenomenon you see on this side of eternity. 

“I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.”

If you pause and reflect on this carefully, you’d realize that success is impossible without understanding and partnering with these 2 forces.

Unfortunately, in every human, there is a nagging desire to explain the causes of events without acknowledging the roles of probabilities (chance) and time.

When a person wins a race, humans say it’s because he’s fast

When an army wins the battle, we say, it’s because the army had superior military strategies

When a person accumulates wealth or obtains valuable outcomes in their lives, we say it’s because the person had certain traits that made such results more likely

Yet we conveniently forget the stories of people who were fast but still lost a race.

We forget about powerful armies that succumbed to smaller and weaker armies

We forget about the hardworking men and women who apply all the tricks in the success guru’s playbook but still end up struggling to make ends meet.

As it turns out, our perception of causality is fractured because we don’t understand probabilities and time. Living life with such a fractured perception of causality is like crossing a busy highway blindfolded – you may make it to the other side, in every sense of the phrase.

So, what’s the way out? You must understand probabilities and time. 

II. People Do Not Inherently Understand Probabilities

In 1979, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky published a journal article titled, Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk”.

One of the big ideas in the article is the manner in which people think about probabilities.

People do not think about the probability of an event, but rather the impact of that event. And this is reflected in their decision-making process.

For instance, assume I’m about to toss a coin.

If I asked you to choose between head and tails, you will probably pick one side at random. Why? Because you know that every coin has a 50% chance of giving you a Head and a 50% chance of giving you a Tail.

What if, before flipping the coin, I told you that I will give you $1000 if the outcome is Heads?

Most people will subconsciously weigh “Heads” more valuable than “Tails” – even though the probability of either option is still 50% each!

The same thing happens in other kinds of decision-making.

For instance, the probability of winning the lottery is very small, but the impact $1,000,000 can have on a person’s life is high. As a result, gamblers overestimate their chances of winning and continue to gamble. Similar patterns occur in the way people handle their health and finances. Below a particular age, the probability of developing high blood pressure, or experiencing a financial emergency is reasonably low. This time, most people underweigh or even ignore these probabilities and continue to make decisions that can have bad outcomes. By the time they realize the error of their ways, it’s often already too late.

But that’s only just the tip of the iceberg.

III. Probabilities Are Wider Than You Realize

Back to the million-dollar question: Would France have won the World Cup if Zidane hadn’t gotten the red card?

That is one of the several alternative histories we will never get to see. What we do know is that Zidane’s absence had an impact on the game’s final outcome.

The same thing plays out in your day-to-day individual decision-making.

Right before you commit to any decision, there are a ton of potential outcomes that are available to you. Before you choose a spouse, there are tons of potential spouses out there in the universe that can complement you. Before you choose a job, there are tons of potential jobs out there that can be a good fit for you. Before you invest your hard-earned money, there are multiple opportunities vying for your attention. However, once you choose, you will only experience the outcomes attached to your choice.

And what happens to the other alternative histories? They may or may not be available to you again at a later time. In the context of our football example, it took France another 12 years before the opportunity to win the World Cup presented itself again.

Many will not be that fortunate. Why? In addition to not thinking in terms of probabilities, very few people think about the alternative histories and the potential outcomes of these histories.

IV. Errors and Alternative Histories

The quality of your life is a function of the probabilities you are aware of at the point of decision making. These probabilities are not merely limited to the outcomes of your decisions, but also to the outcomes in your alternative histories.

But how can we access these alternative histories when we cannot see them?

The answer is something the writer of the Qoheleth understood:

“There is an evil I have seen under the sun, like an error which proceeds from the ruler—folly is set in many exalted places and in great dignity while the rich sit in humble places.”

To the laity, the word “error” implies a mistake – something that should not happen, or something that one must avoid at all costs.

On the other hand, to scientists, “error” has a second layer of meaning, which describes a variation/deviation from one’s expectations. That’s why you won’t see researchers freaking out when they see errors in their data. Sometimes, scientists, unlike laymen, are humble enough to acknowledge that their expectations may be built on faulty assumptions about reality. At other times, certain statistical tests WILL NOT even be valid unless there is some variation (i.e., ‘error’) in the observations. In other words, errors are desirable!

What determines your stake at the table of honor is neither your wisdom, nor your wealth, but how much error (variation) you permit in your life.

Take a moment to think about how the day-to-day existence of the average person in the 21st-century is devoid of deviation.

In the name of productivity and personal development, many people lead machine-like lives. They plan their day to the microsecond and leave little to no gap for anything else. Because of their ill-advised adherence to their tasks and to-do lists, these people rarely break routine. As a result, there is little room for them to experience potential outcomes from their alternative histories. You see the same thing play out in the deadbeat, who wakes up, eats, plays videogames all day, watches porn, and sleeps – only to repeat the cycle the next day. Like his type A counterpart, there is very little “error” in his life that could bring him in contact with life-changing outcomes in his alternative histories.

People who benefit from probabilities have consciously or unconsciously acknowledged its impact by embedding variability in their lives. This takes different forms. For instance, some read books outside their fields that expose them to cutting-edge knowledge which is often commonplace concepts in other fields. For others, it’s their willingness to do something as simple as talking with strangers. Over time, such people develop a wide network that often proves invaluable in the long run.

Understand this: Whenever you introduce variability in your routine, you are exposing yourself to more happy accidents from your alternative histories.

V. Understanding the Times

The language we speak heavily influences the way we think. Unfortunately, many modern languages, including English, do not do justice to the concept of “time”. This is why many people lack an understanding of the times. 

In Ancient Greek, there were two major words used to describe the concept of time.

The first word was “chronos” which implied the passage of time from morning to evening, day to day, month to month, or year to year. Chronos dealt with the quantity of time. The second word was “kairos” which described an opportune time where you needed to act with decisiveness. Kairos was qualitative and it varied from person to person. Your actions during kairos can affect the trajectory of your life.

Many people fail to understand the times because they cannot distinguish between chronos time and kairos time. Here are three reasons why this is so:

First, people put their emotions in the driving seat of their lives. It is easy for this to play out today because of the relationship people have with information abundance. On one hand, you have the news media bombarding your mind with violence, gore, and death. On the other hand, you have the noise from modern-day pharisees and influencers who profit from your attention on social media. Of course, you can never meet their standards. This is why a lot of people’s actions are reactive – only informed by the emotions of fear and anxiety. In this state, it is hard to distinguish between chronos and kairos time.

Second, people are not patient. This is where the Yoruba maxim, roughly translated, ‘Don’t run on another man’s clock’ rings true. Kairos time varies from individual to individual. By focusing on your neighbor’s journey, you will miss out on your kairos when it inevitably arrives. Refuse to allow impatience and resentment to build in your heart.  Here’s one more verse from the Qoheleth, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven”. When you are patient, life-changing opportunities will inevitably come your way. This is an immutable principle on this side of eternity.

Third, people do not know when to be decisive. Some people may appear to be models of patience, but deep down in their hearts, they are afraid of taking action. Kairos is like a portal that can give you access to alternative histories with life-changing outcomes. If, in the name of patience, you fold your arms and stay put, that portal of opportunity will be closed and you will remain at the same level.

VI. Tying it all Together

For the last time, let’s go back to the 2006 World Cup final between Italy and France.

We’re in the dying moments of the game with the scores tied at 1-1.

Both teams have an almost equal shot at winning the cup.

Now, Materazzi has just grabbed Zidane’s shirt, to which a disgusted Zidane has replied, “If you want my shirt so much, I’d give it to you afterwards”

Pause.

Materazzi understands that in the current timeline, Italy and France are equally matched. However, the Italian hardman is somehow aware that there is an alternative history where the Italian team has a higher probability of winning the World Cup.

The portals of kairos open up and Materazzi jumps in ‘heart first’.

“I’d prefer the whore that is your sister!”

In less than 30 minutes, an alternative history has played out and the Italian team is crowned World Champions.

And what about Zidane, one of the most skillful playmakers of his generation?

I bet he was wondering how differently everything could have played out if he had paid more attention to the 8th wonder of the physical universe – time and probabilities!

“I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.”

Three Big Ideas: On Influencers, Whorf’s Hypothesis, and, Waiting

Big Idea #1 From Me

Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the US Federal Reserves, once said, ‘In a crisis the only asset you have is your credibility.’

By extension, this means as an influencer, you shouldn’t pull instructions out of thin air and advise the populace to act on that.

However, this is not the case in the area of public policy making.

Many policies are based upon the work of theorizers who really have nothing to lose in the event that things go wrong. If things go fine, they get the accolades and if things go wrong, they are still able to publish their theories in journal articles and opinion pieces of popular newspapers.

You see the same patterns play out in the online marketing and personal development space. As with the policy theorists, many people in this niche do not have anything to lose. If things go as planned, they get a testimonial out of you. And if things do not go as planned, you’d still have spent your $2599 on their courses.

Here’s a useful heuristic: Before you commit yourself to any individual’s advice, ask yourself, what does he have to lose if he is wrong?

Big Idea #2 From Research

In his now classic 1940 journal article, Science and linguistics, Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed the controversial position that the way we think about the world is influenced by our language.

As humans, we like to hold ourselves up as rational beings that have used the power of intellect to bring nature to its knees. We cite the examples of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein – the great men of science whose elegant mathematical formulas form the foundations upon which our present understanding of the physical world is built.

Yet, we take for granted the role that the language they spoke played on the way they thought.

For instance, in English, sentences take the form of actor-action. So, we say, ‘The boy is running’ or ‘Lightning is striking’. In contrast, in Hopi, a language spoken by a Native Indian tribe in North America, sentences take the form of action duration. Therefore, instead of saying ‘The boy is running’, the Hopi people will say ‘Running’, and instead of saying ‘Lightning is striking’, they will simply say ‘Lightning’.

This slight distinction in language implies that to those who speak English, an action can never occur in isolation – there must always be an actor responsible for causing the action. In contrast, the Hopi are satisfied with actions without a cause.

The same event occurring in the world evokes a reaction in the observer that is dependent on the language he/she thinks in!

My key takeaway is perfectly articulated by following parable told by David Foster Wallace:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

Just like the two young fish who were unconscious of the role that water played in their existence, we all take for granted the roles that our language plays in how we think.

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

Genesis 18:8 says, ‘And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.’

For context, Abraham had discerned that certain sojourneying men were not ordinary. So, he stopped them from their travels, had their feet clean and prepared a sumptuous meal for them.

Then, he waited.

Christians are often encouraged to wait upon the Lord. Unfortunately, many go about it the wrong way. For many, waiting is a passive process where you simply fold your arms and wait for events to unfold.

The image that Abraham presents us is a totally different depiction of the waiting process. For Abraham, waiting was similar to what a waiter in a high-end restaurant does to patrons.

The waiter does not passively fold his arms hoping to be of service when the occasion arises. Rather, the waiter is always on standby – waiting with an expectation to meet the patron’s needs.

That was the attitude Abraham had on that sunny day at the plains of Mamre. He didn’t just hurriedly serve the travellers a meal.

He also waited with the waiter’s expectation for the Word to drop.

Needless to say, that’s what happened moments later:

Genesis 18:10: ‘And he said, I will certainly return unto thee according to the time of life; and, lo, Sarah thy wife shall have a son…’

I don’t know what you are trusting God for in your life, but I want you to always remember this: Waiting, done right, is never passive.

May the LORD give you understanding in these things.

Three Big Ideas: On the Lion Tamer, Prospect Theory, and Length of Days

Big Idea #1 From Me

I recently read the interesting story of a 20th-century lion tamer named Clyde Beatty.

He lived in an age where many lion tamers of the time died in the line of duty.

Yet, Clyde Beatty lived till he was 62 years and when he died, it was from cancer, rather than from being mauled by a lion.

So, what did Beatty do differently? Well, it turns out that he was one of the first people to adopt the use of a chair and a whip in his lion taming act.

You see, when a lion tamer is performing his act, he always ensures that the chair is held in the lion’s face. This doesn’t only maintain a physical distance between the lion and the performer, it also confuses the lion. Why? Because it is focusing on all four legs of the chair at the same time, rather than on the tamer.

Many people today are just like the lion in the tamer’s act!

Just like the lion is immobilized by focusing on all legs of the chair at the same time, many people are immobilized into mediocrity because their attention is pulled in all different directions.

Understand this: The world out there is always waving a chair in your face every time. And as long as your eyes are on the legs of the chair, rather than the meal, you will continue to be locked in the cage of unfulfilled potential. 

Big Idea #2 From Research

“Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky is one of my favorite journal articles of all time. 

One of the ideas that stood out to me was the manner in which people think about probabilities, or the likelihood that something will happen.

People have a tendency of not thinking about the probability of an event, but rather the impact of that event. And this is reflected in their decision making process.

For instance, assume I’m about to toss a coin.

If I asked you to choose between head and tails, you will probably pick one side at random. Why? Because you know that every coin has a 50% chance of giving you a Head and a 50% chance of giving you a Tail.

What if, before flipping the coin, I told you that I will give you $1000 if the outcome is Heads?

Most people will subconsciously weigh “Heads” more valuable than “Tails” – even though the likelihood of either option is still 50% each!

This human tendency to subconsciously overweigh the likelihood of an outcome is the reason why people continue to gamble. The probability of winning the big payout is very, very small. But since the impact of winning is BIG, gamblers overweigh their chances and continue to gamble.

My key takeaway is simple. You might be thinking you don’t gamble, or engage in other socially unacceptable behaviors. But I want you to think about how you are handling your health or finances. Who knows, your preferences might just be revealing how you are underweighing your chances of experiencing the outcomes of unhealthy physical and fiscal behaviors.

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

Proverbs 3:1-2 says, ‘My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.’

‘Length of days’ and ‘long life’ are two concepts that took a while for me to differentiate.

People are more familiar with the concept of long life, which literally means growing to a full, old age before expiring.

Length of days, on the other hand, expresses a situation whereby the individual who understands its operation is able to milk from 1 day what others attain in a month, or a year!

I know this is not intuitive to the logical individual, but when you realize that (1) time is a property bound to the physical realm, and, (2) God is spirit – He transcends the physical, you will have no choice but to agree that partnership with the Father is the Ultimate productivity hack!

May the Lord give you understanding in these things. 

Three Big Ideas: On Inversion, Overconfidence, and Observing Patterns

Big Idea #1 From Me

Carl Jacobi was a 19th-century German mathematician that made a lot of profound contributions to the field of differential equations.

One thing that made this possible was Jacobi’s problem-solving approach.

He believed that when you invert already known facts in a particular discipline, you can reveal additional knowledge that was hitherto unknown.

That’s why, as a professor, Jacobi always encouraged the graduate students under him to always invert the known confines of the field and examine what they found there.

When this method is applied to everyday living, you’re equipped with an unrivaled clarity of thought.

For instance, instead of asking yourself, What do I need to do to make money?, you can ask, What do I need to do to lose money? Chances are doing this will open your eyes to areas of your life where you’re not being a good steward of money.

Instead of asking, What do I need to do to stay productive?, ask, What do I need to do to waste my day? Again, this exercise will help you identify the simple tweaks you can make to your day to boost your productivity.

Many times, humans are unidirectional in their thinking.

We like to think in a particular way because contrarian thinking takes effort.

As a result, we imagine that the elusive secret to success can be attained only by accumulating more knowledge and wealth.

Through inversion, you’d realize that most times, less is more.

Big Idea #2 From research

In a journal article titled, Overconfidence in Case-Study Judgements, Stuart Oskamp asked a group of doctors and students to provide correct answers to a series of questions about a real person nicknamed ‘Joseph Kidd’.

The information about Joseph Kidd was presented in 4 stages, with questions asked after each stage. In addition to providing correct answers, participants were also required to answer how confident they were about their answers.

Stage 1 contained brief demographic information about Kidd like age, gender and so on.

Stage 2 had information about Kidd’s childhood.

Stage 3 contained information about Kidd’s education.

Stage 4 had information on other activities that Kidd was involved in till he clocked 29 years.

In all, the participants were asked 25 questions about Kidd.

On average, no one (even the doctors) got up to 30% of the questions right.

Yet, in spite of the poor accuracy of their answers, the more information a participant had about Joseph Kidd, the more confident they were in their answers. And there was no difference between the doctors and the students!

My key takeaway is something I’ve nearly flogged to death.

More information doesn’t necessarily translate into better decision-making.

That’s why I’ve stressed countless times that you don’t need to know everything. You only need a revealed knowledge of what works and the wisdom to work it out.

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

1 Chronicles 28:12a, 19 says: “And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit…All this, said David, the LORD made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern”

One thing I established in my book “Mastering the Art of Observation” is the fact that the unseen realm is the causal realm.

The blueprint for life in the physical realm is found in the unseen.

Even Genesis 1:1 attests to that.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The action word “created” is in the past tense form, implying that everything was already finished in the beginning.

When you have an understanding of this, like David, you can simply align with patterns in the unseen realm and crystallize their physical analogs in the seen realm – irrespective of the uncertainties in the world system.

If there’s any prayer you should heartily pray this season, it’s this:

Father, open the eyes of my understanding to see the patterns for my life, destiny, and situation.

May the Lord give you understanding in these things.

Three Big Ideas: On Keystone Predators, the Lindy Effect, and, Intelligence Officers

Big Idea #1 from me

In 1995, the administration of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA released grey wolves into the park.

In less than 6 years after the introduction of the wolves, regions of the park that had been barren was now crowded with trees.

Even more remarkable, due to the presence of trees, there was less soil erosion and new pools began to form in the park, where there had been none before.

All because of the addition of wolves into the park!

Ecologists call this type of animals keystone predators.

In the absence of wolves, the balance in the ecosystem was distorted. 

Because grazing animals were left unchecked by their predators, the grey wolf, their population in the park exploded.

In no time, unhindered overgrazing left vast portions of the land barren.

In a similar example, there’s evidence that thousands of years ago, North Africa and the Middle East used to be lush with green vegetation – yes, even the Sahara and Arabian deserts!

But, do you know what else was present at the time?

Lions! A keystone predator that brought balance into that ecosystem

The extinction of lions in that region correlated with dramatic climatic changes that led to the hot, arid Arabia and North Africa we know today.

My point?

You are a creative partner with God in the institution of order in the midst of chaos.

You were placed on earth for a reason and when you don’t play your role, you cause an imbalance in the ‘ecosystem’.

There are destinies attached to you.

There are other people’s stories that will not happen until you step up and fill your gap.

You are the answer to somebody’s prayer.

Awake from your slumber. Put on your strength. Put on your beautiful garments.

Arise and shine!

Big Idea #2 from Research

In a paper titled, Implications of the Copernican principle for our future prospects, astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III describes how in 1969, he visited the Stonehenge (which was estimated to be over 3000 years old) and the Berlin Wall (8 years at the time).

Gott then wondered which of the two structures will outlast the other.

As you probably know, the Berlin Wall was destroyed in 1991, while Stonehenge continues to exist to this day.

Gott then mathematically proposed an argument that the longer a thing exists, the more likely it will continue to exist.

This has been popularly called the Lindy Effect.

My takeaway is simple: More often than not, older is better. 

Books that were written hundreds of years ago but are still in print today contain more wisdom and practical knowledge than books written in the past 10 – 20 years. And because of their current longevity, these classics will also continue to remain relevant for the next 1000 years.

The same pattern repeats itself in medicine.

Herbs were used by our forefathers to cure ailments and they still remain relevant today. On the other hand, numerous ‘modern’ drugs have been replaced. For instance, as a young child, I remember using chloroquine pills to treat malaria. Artemisinin and other drugs have long since taken the place of chloroquine as the go-to cure for malaria.

This point is instructive: While everybody is shouting about futurism and cutting edge technology, you will be better served to at least keep one hand on systems and structures that the Lindy Effect has vetted.

Big Idea #3 from the Bible

Proverbs 2:6 says, “For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.”

Many people mistakenly interpret knowledge as information.

As a result, they strive to consume as much information as they can. Usually, this leads to information constipation, where the individual is whipped into a state of action paralysis.

One of the Hebrew words translated “knowledge” is “madda”, which literally means “intelligence”.

Staff members of the CIA and FBI are usually called intelligence officers.

This isn’t because they are encyclopedias of knowledge, but rather because they have a specific, privileged awareness of the variables of a specific situation.

In the same vein, the men of Issachar were called men of understanding because they had privileged, revealed knowledge of what Israel had to do per season.

Understand this: Life is complicated as it is. There’s information everywhere – plenty of noise, little signal.

You really don’t need to know everything there is to know!

You only need to have the revealed knowledge of what works and the wisdom to work it out.

May the Lord give you Understanding in these things.

Developing an Understanding of the Times: The Curious Case of General Sani Abacha

Disclaimer: I’m not advocating for coups, dictatorships, or human rights violations. Ensure you adequately understand the example before drawing your conclusions.

In 2019, I took an online course where the instructor made an interesting argument.

He said when you really detest someone, that person usually has some other traits that would bring you phenomenal success if you applied them to your life.

In recent Nigerian history, there’s no one that has gotten as much hate as General Sani Abacha, the military head of state who ruled Nigeria with an iron fist from 1993 – 1998.

I’m old enough to remember the celebrations of the masses when news of Abacha’s death filtered out to the street in 1998.

Over two decades later, Abacha’s name continues to stink to high heavens, even as the millions of dollars he embezzled from the country’s coffers continue to be restored.

Yet, for all his failings as a leader, Abacha understood something that so many people fail to grasp at an elementary level.

He had an understanding of the times

Between 1960 and 1993, there were 9 coups in Nigeria, with 6 resulting in the toppling of the incumbent government.

Out of the 6 successful coups, Abacha was involved in the planning and execution of 5 of them.

In fact, it can be said that the only coups that failed were the ones Abacha didn’t help plan.

Was this a consequence of Abacha’s wisdom as a master strategist?

No. I believe it had more to do with his intuitive understanding of the times.

The Bible says, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of the light”

Possessing an understanding of the times is a key distinction between the wise and the fools. Unfortunately, a lot of good people have good intentions but lack this intuitive understanding that Abacha possessed.

So, how can you develop an intuitive understanding of the times?

Apart from your personal walk with God, which I believe is the most important criterion for developing an understanding of the times, here are 3 points from Abacha’s career that you can apply to your life for positive outcomes.

1. Learn to keep your emotions in check

Right now, there’s a lot of hype fueled by the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

On one hand, you have the news media throwing out the daily number of deaths from Coronavirus.

On the other hand, you have experts and life coaches motivating you to take advantage of the global lockdown to learn new skills.

The problem with the two scenarios is that they force you to take reactive actions in fear.

Because of your constant consumption of the news, you are forced to live in a realm where fear and anxiety becomes your daily reality.

Because of the constant noise from the self-proclaimed gurus and life coaches, you find yourself reacting in “sheep mentality”, learning for its sake, when you could really benefit from keeping your eyes and ears open to the times.

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In an interview, Ibrahim Babangida, former Nigerian military president was asked whether he could have predicted that Abacha would have ever become military head of state.

After dribbling around the question in his usual “Maradona” manner, Babangida admitted that he didn’t see it coming.

Why?

In all the times they had been together, the only side of Abacha that Babangida saw was the loyal soldier.

Abacha mastered his emotions.

He never, at any point, allowed his emotions to betray his ultimate ambitions or the slightest indication of interest in the country’s highest office.

You can never go wrong when you make equanimity your friend.

2. Be patient

In a world of fast cars, fast food and fast internet, everyone seems to forget the power of patience.

When you are patient, life-changing opportunities will eventually come your way.

When you’re patient, your faculties of perception are sharpened and you are more likely to position yourself to be a beneficiary of the times.

That’s why there’s a lot of wisdom in the Preacher’s words when he said, “The race is not to the swift…nor the battle to the strong…nor favor to the man of skill; but time and chance happen to them all”

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Buka Suka Dimka and Sani Abacha were both conspirators in the July 1966 coup.

Both men were ambitious and thirsty for power.

Yet, it was Abacha who was seated in Aso Rock by 1996.

At that point, Dimka had been dead for 20 years after he had hastily hashed out a coup that ultimately proved abortive.

Abacha’s patience allowed him to read the times clearly. And as a result, chance seemed to partner with him at every decisive stage of his career.

3. Know when to be decisive

Some people appear to be models of patience, but deep down within their hearts, they are afraid of taking action.

After a season of waiting, there’s always a window of opportunity that time and chance will bring your way.

When such an opportunity arises, you need to be decisive.

After Babangida annulled the June 12, 1993 elections in Nigeria and installed a clueless interim government, I can imagine Abacha rubbing his hands in glee, hardly believing his luck.

It was like everything in his life had been leading up to that point.

Because of his understanding of the times, Abacha staged a bloodless coup that saw him installed as the Nigerian military head of state for the next 5 years.

Now, imagine if Abacha had chosen to be more patient.

That window of opportunity would have been closed and Nigeria may have been in a much better place today.

Stories like this will continue to play out in history, especially when evil men possess an intuitive understanding of the times.

May the Lord give you Understanding in these things.

Three Big Ideas: On Kingdom Economics, Risk Assessment, and, Being Interpreters

Big Idea #1 From me

If you’ve noticed, I’ve not written anything explicitly about the COVID-19 pandemic.

This doesn’t mean I’m trivializing the whole situation.

As a man of science, I’ve been taking necessary precautions to reduce the probability of being infected.

But as a man of science with a Christian worldview, here’s my two cents about the currently unfolding events:

1. God is a good God and He always has an agenda.

This means two things: (a) God did not cause the Coronavirus to happen. He’s not using the virus to punish the sins of humanity. Coronavirus is happening because we live in a fallen world. It’s the same thing that plays out when droughts, famine, fires, etc. happen. (b) Coronavirus did not catch God unawares. It’s not like God was planning something and then the virus came from nowhere to ruin his plans. No, God always has His Ultimate agenda and His agenda will always come to fruition.

2. God’s agenda and systems for executing His plans are robust.

This also means two things: (a) In times of certainty, there are absolutely zero downsides to being sensitive to His agenda, and, (b) In times of uncertainty (like this season), aligning with God’s system is the surest foundation upon which you can build your life. That’s the way the economics of God’s Kingdom works, as opposed to the world system which crashes as the slightest hint of unpredictability.

Big Idea #2 From Research

In the journal paper titled, “Violence Risk Assessment and Risk Communication”, Paul Slovic and his colleagues asked some mental health experts to determine whether it was safe to discharge a psychiatric patient, Mr. Jones, who had a history of violence.

The mental health experts were divided into two groups.

To experts in group 1, they were told that people similar to Mr. Jones had a 10% chance of being violent again after being discharged.

On the other hand, those in group 2 were told that out of every 100 patients similar to Mr. Jones, 10 were likely to be violent after being discharged.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

At the end of the experiment, experts who received information in the form of numbers (Group 2) were two times more likely than experts who received the same information in the form of percentages (Group 1) to deny the discharge.

Simply put, because of the way the information was presented to them, experts in Group 2 were twice as likely as experts in Group 1 to see Mr. Jones as a threat to society.

My key takeaway is that the motives of the information-bearer largely determines the manner in which information will be presented to you.

There’s an indication that if people want to play up the significance of a particular statistic, they are more likely to present it to you as raw numbers.

For instance, telling people “1 out of 1000 people who eat XYZ will get cancer” tends to be taken more seriously than saying “0.1% of people who eat XYZ will get cancer”. 

Be wise in your information consumption during this period.

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

2 Chronicles 26:5 says, “And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God: as long as he sought the LORD, God made him prosper”

The distinguishing factor in Zechariah’s life was his understanding in the visions of God.

This doesn’t merely mean that Zechariah could see visions and dream up dreams.

It’s deeper than that.

It means Zechariah was in tune with God’s agenda per time and was able to interpret this agenda to king Uzziah, who is turn took appropriate actions and ended up prosperous.

In times of uncertainty, the world is always searching for interpreters who can make sense of the times and seasons.

Understand: Trends will pass, fads will wither, but those who can interpret God’s agenda will remain irreplaceable.

May the LORD give you understanding in these things