Barry Schwartz: TED Talk on Our Loss of Wisdom - Video

A wise person knows when and how to make the exception to every rule…

A wise person knows how to improvise…

Real-world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined and the context is always changing. A wise person is like a jazz musician, using the notes on the page, but dancing around them, inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand.

A wise person knows how to use these moral skills in the service of the right aims. To serve other people, not to manipulate other people.

And finally, perhaps most important, a wise person is made, not born. Wisdom depends on experience, and not just any experience.

You need the time to get to know the people that you’re serving. You need permission to be allowed to improvise, try new things, occasionally to fail and to learn from your failures. And you need to be mentored by wise teachers.

Where can I find a profit

'When you eliminate the obvious, then what remains, albeit improbable, must be the truth.

The times are tough, the going rough, the customers are in defensive mode and profits are a difficult thing to find. So, where do we look for profits? Consider there habits. Where have they been found in the past and where will they be found now?

The answers may differ from business model to business model but profits have always come from exploitation and RISK. You must exploit opportunities and take risks if you want to really be in business i.e. developing and profiting, no matter what the economic environment.

It is now, more than any other time in your lifetime, that those who have the courage will be able to take advantage of and exploit some of the greatest investment opportunities in this century. It is a buyers' market, whether you are in retail, stocks, real estate or a venture capitalist taking the biggest risk of all, looking to invest in a new business.

"I never guess. It is a shocking habit and destructive to the logical faculty."

There is an old adage in the business world that says “Be thoughtful and hesitant when others are greedy and be quick to exploit when others hesitate.”

Most business markets are based on a pack mentality. They cling together for protection and this 'pack' is currently hesitant and fearful in its approach. Not daring to be the first to break ranks, in case they are followed, found to be wrong and are pillaried and expelled by their peers. They have much fear and much to fear. Consequently, they are acting with a fearful mob mentality, hesitant, irrational and unpredictable in most cases.

If you have the courage and expertise to take some well measured and calculated risks at this time, you could become the new pack leader. The trend setter that sniffs out the route to safe and steady profit. Resulting in some, much or great profit in the months and years to come.

Your issue is what Risks do I need to take to make this vision come true and how best should I measure these risks?

"London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Fortunes won and lost

"Fortunes are not made in boom times…that is merely the collection period. Fortunes are made in depressions or lean times when the wise man overhauls his mind, his methods, his resources, and gets in training for the race to come." - George Wood Bacon