“If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” [Last Verse, chapter 3, the Art of War, which spawned the following modern proverb] “If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.” Sun Tzu
I’ve found these words of wisdom to be true. The more I work with personality and predictive analysis, the more I recognize that self-knowledge is one of the keys to success.
Take for example, motivations.
How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m not the money-motivated type”? While it may be true in many cases, it’s amusing when the subject is exceedingly acquisitive and for whatever reason wants to believe she isn’t.
This is exactly the sort of lack of self-understanding that hinders success. For instance, the subject pursues a humanitarian career appealing to what she believes is her altruistic nature, and several years down the road finds herself miserable.
She may very well be altruistic, but she’s secretly motivated by money in a big way, and would be much more successful and infinitely more happy in a commission-based job, such as a real estate agent.
The hidden motivations of others are also the cause of some of the biggest challenges you will face in life. You can spend months or years getting to know someone, but there are ways to cut to the chase and find out right away if he’s a risk to your financial well-being (or worse), such as through my unconventional security investigations.
The subconscious mind is tricky—it hides your true desires and all your fears and defenses.
The better you know your unconscious beliefs, misconceptions, fears, biases, and strengths, the less likely you’ll make a mistake in judgment in high risk situations. Thus, you are more likely to win instead of lose.
Self-knowledge also includes timing.
Everyone has different timing, and knowing the lucrative and not so lucrative phases in your life—the extremes—gives you an enormous edge in life allowing you to capitalize on the rewarding stages and limit your risk in the red-flag episodes.
It’s a rare individual who knows himself and others exceedingly well without much effort, but for the rest of us, delving into the subconscious mind and collective personal timing greatly assists in winning life’s everyday battles.
Copyright © 2018 Scott Petullo