Have you ever been in a business meeting or life situation and needed to get a better read on the room in order to anticipate the outcome of that meeting or situation as the meeting progressed? Did you fail to do this because you were incapable of discerning whether the participants in the meeting were being honest and forthcoming, or possibly trying to be misleading?
Additionally, have you heard a story presented by the media and weren’t sure whether they were presenting the truth, or further trying to push a certain narrative?
Perhaps you may have an idea of what I’m talking about, but if you don’t exactly know where I’m coming from then let’s take a deeper look into this to give you some tools to help you when you find yourself in a strange situation and you need to go about discerning between what is truth and what is fiction.
For the sake of today’s topic I felt compelled to talk about some strategies you can learn to implement yourself in order to get better at discerning between what is fiction and what is fact, as well as equipping yourself to force certain outcomes in those social settings where such things may apply.
After all, we’re living during an era of Fifth-generation warfare and the atmosphere circulating around the world of business, politics, and media is rigged by players that are corrupt, dishonest, and at best trying to force certain outcomes of their own in order to achieve their own self interests.
Granted there are no guarantees in life except death and taxes. However, if you have the self-discipline, the motivation, and the training you can absolutely learn how to better navigate the world so you are less likely to end up on the wrong side of a negotiation, at the mercy of a tyrant within the governing borders of a society, or within the walls of an unstable and unpredictable corporate infrastructure.
One of the best skill sets that you can acquire in life is the skill of reading your opposition. This is something that you may find yourself using either in a sales meeting, or when you see some sensational news headline filling up your social media feed all in an attempt to push a fake and divisive narrative.
The Concept of Telegraphing
As a professional in the fitness industry I’m always pushing people to embrace discipline and devotion. The reason for this is that any skill-set that you set out to master will require consistent discipline and practice. Not only is this the case for physical fitness it’s especially true for your mental fitness and acuity.
Being a fitness and strength performance coach I’ve had the pleasure of training a variety of students over the years ranging from multiple backgrounds. I’ve also worked with several athletes that competed in a variety of disciplines in the world of martial arts.
On a personal note training in Muay Thai kickboxing was one of the best skill sharpening endeavors I’ve ever had the pleasure of practicing. The discipline of Muay Thai kickboxing was life changing for me. Personally speaking it was probably the most physically and mentally demanding form of training I ever put myself through.
Though I predominately trained in this discipline for the purpose of fitness and self-defense, one of the biggest lessons I took away from it was the lesson of reading an opponent's movements based on their physical cues.
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”--Bruce Lee
If you’ve ever trained in a fight discipline then you know that when you first start sparring with an opponent it’s challenging to coordinate your movements because it’s basically a live chess match that moves at a rapid pace. Sparring demands the quick coordination of both your mind and body and both must be completely in sync.
Furthermore, the other challenge is developing the skill to anticipate your opponent’s movements. In the fight community this is often referred to as telegraphing.
In other words, once a fighter is able to get a handle on coordinating his or her combinations of punches and kicks they can then simultaneously start learning how to better predict their opponent’s striking combinations in order to mount a better offense and defense to ultimately win the fight.
So now that you can see where I’m headed with this, how does this apply to business and to the world of media?
One great example concerning the media here is looking at reality versus what the media is telling you.
For instance, looking back you should already understand that the mainstream legacy media can’t be trusted. As a concrete example the media just a few months ago was telling you that this was the best economy going in a lifetime.
Yes, as absurd as that may sound to many of us, the truth is that perhaps you’re reading this and were tricked into believing it because you might have trusted the likes of TV personalities such as Jim Cramer telling you so up until now.
Jim Cramer said back in December of 2021 that “To me, we have the strongest economy perhaps I’ve ever seen.” Now this was a completely shocking statement and I’m personally amazed they allow this guy to give financial advice on television, but then again this is the era of Fifth-generation warfare.
There’s that term again Fifth-generation warfare. What does it mean?
Fifth-generation warfare is warfare that is conducted in a very different way. It doesn’t fall into the same category as kinetic warfare which involves tanks, soldiers, bombs, etc. This type of warfare involves other tactics such as social engineering, misinformation, cyberattacks, and builds on emerging technologies such as AI.
Fifth-generation warfare is about shaping “information and perception” of a population in order to achieve a desired outcome. So understanding this then by extension you can see just how the media is obviously a powerful tool in carrying out this mode of warfare onto the public at large.
So how do I understand what Jim Cramer is telegraphing? To know that Cramer’s statement wasn’t accurate is pretty easy, but to understand this you must first pull yourself away from the TV to observe the answer.
So what do I mean?
While Cramer is making such a shocking statement in reality you and I can simply walk into our local grocery store and see empty shelves of no food, as well as fuel prices approaching $4 and $5 a gallon at our local gas stations.
Is this observable evidence of a strong economy?
When in your lifetime did you ever observe such prices and economic issues at this rate and equate this to being a strong economy?
To understand what Cramer is telegraphing you must learn when to not listen and when to open your eyes to reality. Fuel prices, supply chain shortages, consumer confidence wavering, inflation, no baby formula etc. are all reality and directly conflict with what Cramer said in his very public statement.
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”--Wayne Dyer
You don’t have to be an expert economist to know that this is NOT a strong economy. In fact, the reality is this economy is only getting worse by the day and will continue to until all of the corruption and stupidity is purged from our economic and governmental systems.
The reality is this may take a decade or two to happen assuming we are disciplined about our fiscal policies as a country and we can demonstrate discipline and resilience as a society.
Furthermore, we are going to need politicians that actually fight for putting the country first while, at the same time, having a steel infused spine to withstand the political hits during the social, economic, and political strains that will follow.
So how would I be able to telegraph Cramer’s next move? Well the key to understanding this is looking at how he makes his money and what he stands to lose.
Since Cramer already let the horse out of the barn by stating this was one of the best economies he’s ever seen, my guess is that he will probably start to back off of what he was saying because REALITY just can’t be ignored.
On the other hand, he may continue to double and triple down on the insanity of his statement in some lame attempt to satisfy the insane position he and his network have taken even though reality is crushing their entire narrative by the minute.
Either way you now know his statement was not accurate and you can figure it out by simply observing reality which conflicts directly with what he’s telling you. Now you can go and apply the same principle across the board in other situations you encounter.
Game Theory And Van Halen’s David Lee Roth
So you’re probably sitting there wondering Brandon, what other tools can I use to anticipate my enemy’s next moves, or to force a certain outcome in a given situation without being eaten alive in some subversive situation?
Well yearsago I had a mentor to teach me about Game Theory.
Game theory is the study of the ways in which interacting choices of economic agents produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the agents. (Defined by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
If that sounds complex to you just be patient because I’m going to illustrate this in a much simpler way by telling you about the great Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth and how he used Game Theory while touring from city to city in the 80’s.
You see, back in the 80’s Van Halen had one of the most demanding tours and stage setups of all the Rock tours going on at the time, only being rivaled by KISS. Because of the demanding setup that went into their show, stagehands and rigging personnel always knew it was a heavy lift for them whenever Van Halen came into town to perform and as a result this kept the guys in this industry a bit on edge.
Much of this was the case because of the demand of the work that went into the heavy gear hanging overhead along with the dynamic electrical work that went into setting up their shows. Naturally this created some potential onstage dangers so they needed to have confidence in the work prior to taking the stage.
Because of this, inspecting every detail of the stage set up, and safety concerns that followed, made the set up a matter of life or death in some cases because of the risks involved with putting on such an elaborate show.
It was impossible for the band to cover all of this which led David Lee Roth to come up with a very clever idea putting Game Theory right into practice in order to help the band remedy the situation. In their contract David Lee Roth had a clause added to their agreement with the hosting venue that a bowl of M&M’s must be present in the catering area with all caps in the clause stating “WARNING: ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES.”
Now on the surface that may seem like some high maintenance celebrity driven Prima Donna overreach, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was very intentional.
Roth pointed out in an earlier interview that promoters frequently failed to thoroughly read the contract rider and as a result Van Halen would then be burdened with some serious structural and physical issues. As Roth pointed out it might cause problems such as not having the proper electricity, load bearing, stress, etc.
Roth also having been an architect of the stage and lighting himself knew that when he arrived backstage and happened to see a bowl of M&M’s with brown ones then it was an automatic signal that the promoter had failed to read the contract rider and therefore the Van Halen team would have to endure an additional and very serious line check.
This strategy of placing that clause into the contract rider was Game Theory in practice and was a very clever idea brought on by the legendary frontman that would end up saving the band a ton of money and aggravation.
This is a strategy that is tried and true and is one you can apply yourself directly in your own life. The entire premise here is that Game Theory is a model for you to apply in order to implement strategic thinking when faced with a problem, or series of problems for that matter.
In doing so you can increase your chances of forcing a desired outcome that suits your best interests while also just being an added layer of protection for you if you can figure out a way to leverage it in your particular situation.
In closing, I want to encourage you to study this article and look around at aspects of your life where you think you can apply these strategies.
With the storms approaching concerning the economy, your freedoms, and your overall well-being you’re going to need every tool in the toolbox to weather the storms and I want to help to expose you to as many tools as I can so that you are prepared.
At the end of the day if you and I are both better prepared and society by extension is better prepared well then we all stand to have a better future.
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