This is going to sound a bit stupid, but you don't need to be smart to think like a genius.
In fact, you probably don't want to be like most smart people, because smart people often aren't that smart.
What we consider a smart person, right now at least for most people, is someone who has memorized a lot of facts in order to achieve some level of status, whether that be through a job or career.
But while they did that, they are also very good at overanalyzing risk because they know so much. They have so much information in their head that they think through all of these options to the point of doing nothing.
So they don't do what they want in life.
Dumb people, on the other hand, take the stupid risks that change the trajectory of their lives like we talked about in our last video.
Genius level thinking is not about book smarts.
It's about clarity.
That's why most people don't end up with the life they want because they can't think of a way out.
Actual thinking. And when I say actual thinking, I'm talking about the fact that the mark of a free individual is that they do what they want with their life.
And this requires them to learn how to learn, learn how to earn, and learn how to think.
And that last one, how to think, is the most important because it influences both how you learn, how you act.
And both of those determine the strategy or the path to achieving a big goal.
So this is why people end up with a life that they hate is because their thinking is all off.
So they're acting and their learning is all off.
And then their strategy is all off and they can't make sense of a big goal.
They can't even comprehend something that's worth doing and and worth pursuing for their future.
That's where you get the whole, I don't know what I want out of life that everyone says when you ask them, what do you want to do with your life?
Now, the good news is, is that all of these things are skills, and skills can be learned through practice, repetition, trial, and error.
Now, I've personally always admired the articulation of Jordan Peterson, regardless of what people think of him right now, the magic behind Alan Watts, and the clarity of Daniel Schmachtenberger.
Now, in this video, I want to share with you one of the most powerful mental models that I've come across for literally everything, thinking included.
It's a grand synthesis of the world's great philosophies, scientific discoveries, and psychological patterns that if you spend enough time with what we're about to go over, it will radically change your life.
It did for me, and I guarantee it will for you if you actually sit with this and try to absorb it.
It doesn't matter if you're trying to figure out what you want in life, or if you're trying to become a spiritually enlightened monk, or if you're trying to build a billion -dollar company.
This model that we're about to go over will drastically shorten your path to achieving any of those things.
So this is exactly what we're going to go over, the map of all knowledge.
And if you can understand everything that's inside this map, your thinking will just shoot to another level.
Now, to frame all of this, I want to start with a quote from Ken Wilber, who is the creator of this AQAL map of all knowledge.
I don't have to agree with everything you say, but I should attempt to at least understand it for the opposite of mutual understanding is quite simply war.
Now, this may sound obvious, but you have to think if you want to solve a problem or achieve a goal.
You need to identify a problem.
Then you need to understand it deeply.
then you need to hypothesize a reasonable goal or solution to the problem, and then you need to create and execute a reasonable strategy to achieve the goal.
Now this may sound simple, but it's actually incredibly complex because think about businesses, right?
There's a common statistic that goes around where it's like 99 % of businesses fail within the first one to two years.
And every single time, the reason for that is almost always that they didn't have a product that solved the right problem.
They didn't understand the problem deep enough in order to create a solution, the product that would be successful.
And that's just for business.
What about relationships?
Most relationships fail because one, they either don't realize that there's a problem or two, they do realize there's a problem, but they don't attempt to solve it or they They don't attempt to understand it from the other person's perspective.
And in general, most people fail because they don't understand the situation they're in.
They don't identify the problem.
They don't see a goal.
They don't strategize.
That's the entire thinking process to achieve what you want in life, right?
We're not talking about thinking to sound book smart here.
We're thinking so that we can achieve a good life.
So if you can improve your thinking with this model that we're going to go over, you can solve those problems, understand them, and achieve the goals you want to achieve faster.
And when you map that out over a 10 -year timeline, it's not difficult to see that you can achieve 10 times more than the average person just by learning how to think.
So let's introduce this AQAL model, which was created by Ken Wilber, who's an American philosopher, and he made it his life's work to synthesize all knowledge and experience into one comprehensive theory of everything.
Now, Now, if you dive into Ken Wilber's books or work, he does state that this isn't the end all be all, right?
This is a work in progress.
Everything is a work in progress.
He encourages you and I to understand this model, build on top of it, poke holes in it.
But from my research, this has just completely blown my mind.
And the purpose of this video is to share it with you.
Now, this AQAL model stands for all quadrants, all levels.
So we'll go over this soon, but there are four quadrants, then there are levels of development within each quadrant, and then even further than that, there are lines of development and states and stages of consciousness.
So with this, what Ken Wilber found through decades of his own study and three years plus of sabbaticals for writing books and researching was that all knowledge and experience mapped into four interconnected quadrants.
So the upper left quadrant or perspective is the individual interior.
It's your personal thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and consciousness.
It's what happens in your personal experience in your head.
Now, the upper right quadrant or perspective correlates with that, and it's the individual exterior.
So it's your behaviors, your actions, and your physical brain states.
So the interior individual are things like your emotions or perceptions or thoughts, dots, and then the upper right is the exterior of that.
It's the map for that.
So the physical brain or the brain waves that come from emotions or other things like this.
This is very like the scientific objective quadrant.
Now the lower left is the collective interior.
So the left side of these quadrants is the interior, and this collective interior is the shared culture, values, and group consciousness.
So you can distinguish this from the upper left or interior individual in that the upper left is your own thoughts, emotions, etc. And then culture is like shared thoughts, emotions, language, values, etc. Now the bottom right is the collective exterior.
So this is things like systems or structures or social institutions.
It's the social world.
Now when it comes to becoming a genius level thinker, for the sake of this video, the utility of this model is that when you're facing any form of challenge or situation, you can systematically examine each of the four quadrants or perspectives to get a big overarching picture.
And this is actually where stupid thinking comes from and the way that we'll define it, because most people only think from one quadrant and preach that as the one true way.
So capitalists only focus on the economic system.
Scientific materialists focus on matter and behavior.
Religions focus on shared faith.
And then Stoics and Buddhists focus on the internal world or the upper left. So what Ken Wilber is trying to get across when it comes to thinking or deciding what to do with your life or to decide your values, the fact here is that all of these hold truths and they are all overlapping.
Locking yourself into just one dogmatic worldview puts you in a box.
And the reason this is dangerous is because certain problems are best solved or thought about through certain perspectives.
And if you can't access the right perspective to solve the problem, the problem probably isn't going to be solved, and it's just going to cause you unnecessary pain in life.
Like, if we're thinking about, oh, what do I want to do with my life?
You're trying to think through that problem.
If you only think about it from an upper -right perspective, like a scientific perspective, You're probably going to end up with a life that's rather shallow and nihilistic.
But if you bring in the internal world and shared values and the social system that we're operating within, you get a much, much, much bigger picture and you're not setting yourself up for failure and more problems when you actually go about trying to achieve that thing.
So to make this more clear, let's actually run through that example, because that example is very difficult.
I think it's safe to say that like 90 % of people, if not more, struggle to figure out what they want in life.
Now, if you've heard of the Japanese concept Ikigai, which you can look that up, but it's a framework that people use to kind of see, okay, what am I interested in?
What am I passionate about?
What does the world need?
So on and so forth.
You can think of this AQL model as that, but on steroids.
Now, thinking, actual thinking, not overthinking, is a conversation with yourself.
Stupid thinking is a conversation that turns into an argument because you latch on to one answer and aren't able to see the bigger picture.
Genius thinking is a conversation that accurately covers multiple perspectives and synthesizes the best parts of them into one.
So to begin thinking through what you want in life, we need a series of clear questions for each quadrant of the AQAL model.
So if you're actually trying to figure out what you want in life, it may be wise to pull out a piece of paper and write this down with me as we go.
But we start with quadrant one, which is your inner world.
The first question you ask is what are my core values and what truly matters to me?
The second is what activities make me feel most alive and energized?
The third is what fears or limiting beliefs are holding me back?
And fourth is what does my intuition tell me when I quiet the mental noise?
Now the second quadrant is the individual exterior, so it's your actions and capabilities.
The first question in this quadrant are what are my natural talents and developed skills?
The second is what does my behavior reveal about my true preferences?
The third is what were some of my favorite things as a child?
And the fourth is what concrete steps am I taking and what life is that leading to?
Now that one is extremely important, and it's one that we talked about in the last video.
This single decision will determine most of your life, and if you just think about this question for like seven days straight, you'll have a lot more clarity on what you should do with your life.
Now the third quadrant is the collective interior, which is cultural and social context.
Now this is where it really starts to make sense as to how powerful this can be for thinking.
So the first first question here is, what do my parents or religious leaders expect of me in terms of their idea of success?
So with this alone, you can start to see the depth that we're getting into with asking these questions, where first it's like, okay, what are my core values?
What activities do I like to do?
What fears or limiting beliefs do I have?
This is all interior.
And then when you take an objective look at your actions or capabilities, you can start to weed some of those those things out, get a bit more clear on what you should do, and then you can really start to peel back the layers of like, okay, how do my parents or religious conditioning influence all of these things?
The second question for this quadrant is how do my friends influence my career aspirations and life path?
Now this third question, how does the language I speak and digital culture I'm exposed to influence my opportunities?
This one is crazy because I mean, obviously that you see see young kids all the time in the digital world on the internet making a ton of money because one they speak English or they just saw the opportunity and this opportunity wasn't available to older generations and they just pursued it and they started out earning all of the older generations simply for this reason for the third quadrant so if you're largely unaware of this then you're not going to have those same opportunities available to you and for me I'm an English speaker right I I don't speak any other language aside from a little
bit of Spanish, which I'm not going to do, but I'm sure that within each language, there are these opportunities that are just hidden there that other people don't have access to.
And from what I do know, there is a lot of money that comes from speaking English or that can come from speaking English.
So if you don't know what to do with your life or you just feel like there aren't a lot of opportunities, learning English may be a good place to start and just getting immersed in the digital world to notice more opportunities.
And I know that's a large task, but we're talking about what we want to do with our life.
That's a big thing.
The last question for this quadrant is what shared values am I drawn to and what do I find meaningful?
And we're going to talk about all of these after we finish writing these questions.
Now the fourth quadrant is the collective exterior, which is systems and structures.
So the first question is what are the current opportunities for jobs, careers, or entrepreneurship in today's world?
The second question is how does the education system or internet shape my path?
And you can probably start to get the picture here of why I believe the things that I do because after thinking through all this stuff in today's world with the education system the way that it is with the internet, so on and so forth, I wanted to pursue something meaningful on the internet since i was like age 16 and with this model i can deeply understand that and i can make better decisions going into the future the third question is what technological or social trends are creating new opportunities and ai ai is here right you can see people hopping on it you may be hesitant to hop on it it
may be a fad it may not be but in relation to these questions and what you may find meaningful in life or what you're trying to pursue that may may seem like a very good thing to learn, a very logical thing to learn and study and not close yourself off to because you may not understand the big picture.
So if you want to understand the big picture, I would encourage that you run through all four quadrants on the topic of AI.
And the last question is, what systemic barriers or advantages do I face?
So for most people with the internet, there aren't many barriers and there are many advantages.
So by using this AQAL model, model.
Do you not see the power in this?
You turn the question, what do I do with my life, into a comprehensive map that reveals how your authentic self, actual capabilities, personal calling, economic realities, and cultural context all interplay.
So rather than ending up with a cookie cutter answer of, oh, I don't know what to do with my life, you have no freaking excuse now.
You just thought, like a genius, through all of these questions.
And even if you you don't know exactly what you want, at least you have a bit more clarity because you took the time to actually think.
So if you went through these questions, you might figure out that you value something like creativity over financial security or the opposite.
And that gives you a lot of clarity on what you should do.
You might also discover that the fear of disappointing your parents is hindering your authentic desires.
And you may realize that you procrastinate on certain certain tasks while you are drawn to and heavily pursue other interests.
You might also realize that technology allows you to learn more, do more, and create a career path that wasn't available in the recent past. And all of those are deep, life -changing realizations that you may not have come to on your own unless you knew how to think.
And while all of that's powerful, that's only the first half of this model.
So now we need to talk about why smart people are incredibly dumb.
And I'm going to frame this with a quote from Daniel Schmachtenberger, who I think is a certified genius thinker.
You could say that what humans selected for are genetics selected for memetics, are genetics selected for radical neuroplasticity, and the capacity to have much more significant software upgrades that could change our capacity without needing hardware upgrades.
So when I first came across this AQAL model, I was blown away.
At the time in my life where I first learned about it, it just made so much sense.
I read A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, and it felt like my mind had expanded into a new dimension of thinking.
So we covered the all quadrants portion of AQAL, so now we need to talk about all levels.
So this all levels portion refers to the developmental stages of consciousness that individuals and collectives can evolve through.
Now when it comes to thinking like a genius, many people think that certain problems are impossible or not for them because they're not operating at the level of consciousness or level of mind that would allow them to actually spot the problem.
Now we've discussed this in depth before with spiral dynamics and the nine stages of ego development, so I just want to focus on the four key levels that will change how you think about the world.
Now, these levels of development illustrate the dominant value systems of an individual or culture.
In other words, these levels show what people, cultures, or systems hold as central or important, which influence the decisions that are made and how problems are perceived and solved.
So most people reside in the first three macro stages, while very few, and for the sake of of this video, we're going to call these people geniuses, reside in the last macro stage, or the fourth.
So if we condense these nine stages down into just four of the macro stages, it becomes a lot easier to make sense of.
So in the pre -modern stage, these individuals, cultures, or systems follow established authority and tradition.
There is only one right way, and that usually involves obeying a god or conforming to what is right or true without question.
Now in the modern stage of development, they value science, individual achievement, and competition, and you can best identify this level in universities, corporate structures, and self -help teachings.
So people with this modern worldview are dogmatic about the fact that success should be based on merit and results.
Now the third stage is the post -modern stage, and they value relativistic thinking, Or in other words, everyone's truth is valid.
So include everyone and ensure they are equal.
Now, with each of these stages, there are good and bad parts.
And in today's world, postmodern thinking has largely gone pathological.
This has resulted in things like DEI or gender politics and attempting to dismantle all hierarchies, which is stupid and impossible.
Because by saying all hierarchies are bad, you still form a value ranking.
You still form a a hierarchy.
It's just not a hierarchy that you don't like.
Now the critical piece of these first three stages is that they can't hold multiple perspectives.
They are right and you are wrong, and this makes it difficult for them to think outside of their stage, and even more difficult to solve personal and systemic problems that lead to beneficial progress for humanity.
So this is why smart people are incredibly dumb.
Now with enough effort and development, you can reach this second tier stage of development or second tier thinking.
So at this stage you are able to look backward and pull truths from all prior perspectives.
So the second tier guy can look here, they can also look here, and they can also look here, not just isolated to one of them.
And what this does is it opens up a world of complexity, systems thinking, and awareness.
So it's less about a black and and white.
I'm right. And it's more about a nuanced, the best solution comes from a synthesis of all.
So this guy is a synthesizer or a synthesizer of truth.
That's what we should all become, a synthesizer of truth.
That sounds like ancient, sounds like a very kingly title.
So the second tier thinker knows that authority is important and merit is important and equality is important, but they all have to be taken into account.
Most people can't hold those contradictions in their minds long enough for them to be reconciled.
The other thing is that genius thinkers understand that these are stages of development.
These aren't static identities that you just have for the rest of your life.
So second -tier thinkers often act as translators between the stages, right?
They can speak the language of all of them.
As an example, if a a problem is business related, they can put on the cap of the CEO and solve the problem a lot better than a Bible thumper who values authority and order would be able to.
Obviously, if a pre -modern Bible thumper went into business, it would fail because they would just be like, I trust God to take this business and do great things for me.
And then they're going to get nowhere.
Now, if the problem is in a personal relationship, mansplaining about female psychology probably isn't going to to help very much, or telling them that their hormones are all messed up, right?
If you value science and rationality, that's not a great way to solve that problem in your life, and you're probably not going to have great success with relationships if you do that.
If you're a second tier thinker, you understand that, and you can set aside a lot of what you know to be true about science and rationality, and go more of the irrational, empathetic route.
It all depends on the context.
Now, going back to the original question that we tried to think about, the what do I want out of life?
And we asked all of those questions.
The purpose of understanding these stages is that once you understand what stage you're in, you're able to zoom out a layer, see what you value the most, authority, science, equality, and then you can work to move beyond that to incorporate multiple perspectives so that you actually understand the problems that are happening in your life.
If you're having relationship problems, we just went over why Why?
You could probably be failing at that.
If we go to business problems, you understand that too, and you can work to change it.
The worst thing you can do is get locked in one of these lower levels and only view one perspective as the one right way.
Now, this is an incredibly dense topic.
There's even more to this AQAL model.
If you want me to go into it deeper, please tell me in the comments, but my challenge to you is just to pursue this wisdom on your own, right?
Check out Ken Wilber's work, start watching YouTube videos on it.
just dive deeper into it, right?
Have the curiosity.
If you want to think better like a genius, then you're going to have to learn that skill just like you learn any other skill.
You don't learn a skill by studying it.
You learn it by practicing what you learned in this video.
Now, if you want to go deeper into the levels of development, I had a video that went over the nine stages of ego development, and it's called How to Become More Intelligent than 99 % of People.
That's a very popular video of mine.
And for more of my thoughts and ideas and opinions on on human potential and becoming future -proof and getting what you want out of life, I would recommend joining my sub stack with the link in the description.
But aside from that, like the video, subscribe, you're already here.
It's just a button click.
I'd appreciate it. Thank you again for watching.
Bye.
