The 30-Second Mind.
How to see what is the essential in business and in life before the other person has even finished the sentence. The amazing skills of video gamers and investors like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.
“The rabbit runs faster than the fox, because the rabbit runs for his life, while the fox runs only for his dinner.” Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.
Warren Buffett is one of the best investors and investment mentors of all time. From 1956, when he founded his first company to our days, he loves and plays the game of value investing. Studying his strategy and character shows that many of his principles can be uploaded almost anywhere.
Video games require players to move fast, keep track of many things at once, keep a lot of information in their heads, and decide in a split of a second.
Warren once said for his friend and partner Charlie Munger: “Charlie has the best 30-second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one go. He sees the essence of everything even before you finish the sentence”.
A razor-sharp mind sees in a few seconds what matters. Knows how to see not only with the eyes but also with the mind. The 30-second mind is an attitude. It is based on conscious awareness, courage and intuition.
We need to think as quickly as possible about what is at stake and what the reward is, and we need to have a strong sense of how determined we are to achieve it.
Then it is courage. It is important to be prepared for failure. A 30-second thought is a fully motivated decision-maker moving towards our vision, knowing that there will be failures along the way, often requiring an impromptu change of strategy. Failure teaches better than success.
Intuition is a deeper source of insight than either instinct or critical thinking. It tells us that something somehow feels right or is not right. We could call this a message of the heart rather than a message of the head — because these two messages are often in conflict and point in opposite directions for deciding.
Relying on intuition can improve our decisions and strengthen our confidence in the decision-making process. Experience is an important part of the chemistry of intuition. Intuition is constantly growing and accumulates all the lessons we have unconsciously learned over all the years on this planet.
We only find the world we are looking for. Knowing what to see and decide quickly is Leonardo’s ability, which he called Saper Vedere. Not “see” with the eyes, but see with the brain.
The “gut” is like a light in a cave. When the 30-second mind faces an important decision, it is as researching the evidence on all sides of the question. Like holographic thinking .
The human brain explains Amy E. Herman in her insightful book “Visual Intelligence” does not have the processing power of a computer, and much of the evidence will be ambivalent in the direction in which it points.
“That is why intuition is so useful. While you were sifting through the data, your “gut feeling”, as we often say, has accumulated a whole archive of undetectable signals, some positive, some negative. For deciding, the “gut” will then either confirm or deny the preliminary decisions of the rational self. All decisions should be considered provisional, subject to the approval of intuition. If you feel that doubt arises, examine it. It may be fear, a habitual reaction based on long-established mistakes in your self-image; or it may be the wisdom of intuition that guides you in the right direction.”
Discovery comprises seeing what every one has seen and thinking what no one has thought.
Lessons From The Video Gamers.
Investors like Buffett and Munger and sharp and passionate video gamers have many things in common.
They both play and work for the fun of it. Buffett admits that when he goes to his office every morning, he feels like he’s going to Sistine Chapel for painting. Have you ever seen a video player before he starts playing? The same approach, the same serotonin boost, and the same creative stress.
A video gamer has to have a philosophy to improve his playing skills. Investors and traders alike. Buffet in particular. His philosophy is very simple: never to lose money. His rule number one is never lose money and his rule number two is never forget rule number one.
A video game enthusiast has the same attitude. Never lose a game. One rule. Never lose.
Warren uses his crossover skills all the time. He believes that :
“Berkshire buys if the lemmings go the other way.”
His partners are always looking for opportunities and unusual circumstances to play and invest.
“Great investment opportunities arise when excellent companies are surrounded by unusual circumstances that lead to a misjudgment of the stock”.
They are ready to face anything. They are not surprised by the circumstances. Patience is the great teacher in Warren’s Arc of Skills. He said on another occasion:
“I never swung a ball while it was still in the pitcher’s glove.”
He always thinks for himself: “Never ask the barber if you need a haircut.”
The 30-second mentality of great investors and game players is based on our holographic perception of the world and our lives.
The positive effects of video games on basic mental processes- such as perception, attention, memory, and decision-making are many.
Video games shape the minds of players. Playing video games can help sharpen communication skills, imagination, and the ability to adapt to changing situations.
Video gaming requires quick thinking and razor-sharp decision making. Improves visual contrast sensitivity and the ability to track moving objects in a field of distractions. Reduces impulsiveness. Improves the ability to take part in multiple tasks simultaneously. Increases mental flexibility.
Video games improve performance, especially for tasks that require good eye-hand coordination, attention, excellent working memory and quick decision-making. Video gamers were better than non-players in the ability to fly and land drones and were essentially as good as trained pilots in this ability. Young, inexperienced surgeons who were also avid video gamers surpassed the most experienced surgeons in their field. In one experiment, inexperienced surgeons who experienced new skills with video games improved their performance in laparoscopic surgery compared to a control group of surgeons who did not have this experience.
The 30-second holographic thought forces you to identify fast the characters and put yourself in their shoes, even if you have not experienced enough them. Sometimes you face a choice when there seems to be no right or good result, in such situations, the players develop sympathy and empathy.
To play even the simplest video game, you need good hand-eye coordination. Whether it’s moving a character or clicking on something, the ability to synchronize your eye and hand movements is crucial.
The better you can do this, the better you will be at playing some video games. As you improve your hand-eye coordination, you will not have to look down to see which button to press. Your reaction times will also improve. You are constructing step by step a 30- second mind.
In the investment game, you need to be aware of your environment in the market. Maybe you are on the battlefield and an enemy has just landed in the distance, or maybe you are a detective and notice an important piece of evidence in the room’s corner.
Some games go even further and are built around the concept of observation.
In the actual world, these observation skills can inform us about our environment and the motives of other people.
Like muscles, the brain atrophies if not used. The interactivity of games is a way to train the mind and have fun at the same time.
The best games are those that are challenging.
To reward our brain senses teach us to focus on our actions and helps us to control the surrounding situations. Lessons like these are easy to apply in the actual world. Charlie Munger knows it.
Ockham’s Razor And Simplicity.
The world is at our feet. Great investors work consistenly on these skills and track their progress. They use the strategies they developed slowly and apply them in authentic life to achieve their goals .
“The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to sharpen.” is the motto of a 30 second mind .
Ockham’s razor as a philosophic problem-solving principle assumes that “entities should not be multiplied without necessity”.
We attribute the idea to English Franciscan Brother William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), a scholastic philosopher and theologian who used a predilection for simplicity to defend divine miracles.
This means that “the simplest explanation is most likely the right one”.
This philosophical razor pleads that when faced with competing hypotheses about the same prediction, one should choose the solution with the fewest assumptions, and that we do not mean this as a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions.
So let’s keep it simple and expect everything to change. The fast mind and fast perception is an almost quantum tool.
The 30-second perception is most likely the correct one.