*Typing*

You raise a price, sales go down. You lower a price, sales go up. This is supply and demand. What's fascinating is thinking about the exceptions to this rule. What are the products and services where this economic theory does not apply? The answer is products and services whose prices are directly correlated with the quality of the product. Parents don't want to buy the cheapest car seats. Chefs don't want to buy the cheapest knives. Skydivers don't want to buy the cheapest parachutes. Supply and demand works when the quality of the product that is in demand is an afterthought. However, when quality matters, the theory must be reversed. To increase sales, you must increase prices.

Mistakes feel good. If they didn't, we wouldn't keep making them. One definition of a mistake is the conscious or unconscious decision to trade short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Getting angry and saying hurtful things is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Lying is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Cheating is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. We make the same mistakes over and over again because there is something in those mistakes that is providing us with a sense of pleasure. Or, at the very least, pain relief. This doesn't mean we should continue making the same mistakes. It just means we should forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made. We're not monsters. We're moths seeking an escape from our suffering and so we fly towards the warmth of an open flame. Only to find more pain.

When you are young, you think that your next step will lead to breakthrough and so you step tenaciously rather than wisely. For a time, this tenacity carries you forward. But, not without a cost. Bulls cover tremendous ground but leave behind destruction. As your youth gives way to experience, you start considering direction. You think not just about the step in front of you but how this step will transpire three and four steps down the road. In this season, as you learn to reach for wisdom first, tenacity becomes a last resort. In the rare occasions tenacity is required, it is remembered. It is like the Tiger that sleeps for 20 hours a day, lounges for 3, hunts for 1 and then strikes.

As a child, John D. Rockefeller's mother would preach frugality to he and his siblings. One of her favorite sayings was, "Willful waste makes woeful want." This followed him into adulthood. Rockefeller hated needless waste. Two stories speak to this hatred.

Shortly after purchasing his first home in Cleveland, Rockefeller wanted to expand his gardens. So, he purchased the adjoining lot. He didn't particularly like the look of the house on this lot so he immediately saw to getting rid of it. He decided to donate it to a new girls' school being built a block away. Rockefeller had the house lifted onto dozens of greased logs and rolled it down the street.

On another occasion, Rockefeller was inspecting a Standard Oil plant in New York City. Cans of kerosene were being soldered shut before being shipped all over the United States. He asked the engineer, "How many drops of solder do you use on each can?" "Forty," the engineer replied. "Would you mind having some sealed with thirty-eight drops and let me know?" The engineer used thirty-eight drops of solder, found that a few leaked. Rockefeller then advised him to try thirty-nine drops. None of the cans leaked. "That one drop of solder," said Rockefeller, "Saved $2,500 the first year."

Maslow's Hammer is a cognitive bias caused by an over-reliance on a single, familiar tool. In his own words, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail."

To become a better problem solver, you must add a few more tools to the tool belt. Once this tool belt becomes too cumbersome to mule around, you must then invest in a toolbox and fill it.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't specialize in the use of any one give tool. There are, after all, great advantages in becoming the best in the world at a very specific trade. However, it does mean you should gain a working knowledge of many different tools.