Truth Bomb Tuesday: Humans have one super-power… and most of us never use it
Can you imagine if you had to learn everything from scratch?
I mean everything.
Okay, so I watched ‘My Octopus Teacher’ the other day. I know I’m late to the party. But it was a great little docco.
And one of the things that jumps out at you is just how smart octopuses are, and how clever they are learning how to get to around their little environment.
And you can watch this octopus, through a process of trial and error, learn how things work.
And it has to use trial and error because octopuses are one of those species that don’t have the benefit of parents showing them how things are done.
Right now the magpies are active around where I live. And you can see the young ones shadowing the older ones, learning how to hunt and sing and steal worms from my garden.
But octopuses don’t have that. Every octopus starts from scratch. Every octopus has to reinvent the wheel for themselves.
Which is why octopuses don’t have wheels. Or steam engines. Or word processors. Or excel spreadsheets.
And it made me realise that this, perhaps more than anything, is why we are the dominant species on the planet. This is our super-power.
Yes we have big brains. But octopuses have the brains too.
The key to our dominance is our ability to transcend time. Every generation builds on the generation before.
I mean, imagine starting from scratch. How far along the timeline of technological advancement would you be able to get in a single lifetime? Maybe to a bow and arrow? Maybe to a wheel?
Certainly not to AI-powered facial recognition.
Humanity’s greatest strength – our super-power – is our ability to share knowledge, with each other and through time.
Now, given this, how many property investors do you think try to reinvent the wheel when they first start out?
My guess … Maybe 90%. Maybe more.
Most investors when they’re starting out want to be that clever little octopus, figuring out everything for themselves.
And maybe they’ll do well. Maybe they are very clever. Maybe they’ll get a few stages beyond the wheel all by themselves.
But how far do you think those investors would have got, if the first thing they had done was to tap the great well of our shared knowledge and wisdom?
The difference is massive.
So my advice to you is to lean into this – lean into what makes our species truly special – our super-power.
You don’t have to be an octopus.
You don’t have to do it alone.
DB.