Download Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly AudioBook Free
A leading economist graphs the indirect highway to joy and wealth. Using dozens of practical instances from the worlds of business, politics, science, sports, literature, even parenting, esteemed economist John Kay demonstrates a notion that feels simultaneously paradoxical and deeply commonsensical: The ultimate way to achieve any organic or broadly defined goal-from joy to wealth to earnings to stopping forest fires-is the indirect way. As Kay points out, we hardly ever know enough about the intricacies of important problems to tackle them head-on. And our unstable interactions with other folks and the world at large suggest that the path to our goals-and sometimes the goals themselves-will inevitably change. We can learn about our objectives and exactly how to achieve them only by using a gradual procedure for risk taking and discovery-what Kay message or calls obliquity. Kay traces this pathway to satisfaction as it manifests itself in practically every part of life. The wealthiest people-from Andrew Carnegie to Monthly bill Gates-achieved their riches by using a passion because of their work, not because they arranged materialistic goals. Research shows that companies whose goal (as declared in mission claims) is excellent products or service are more profitable than companies whose explained goal is increasing revenue. In the personal realm, a large body of facts shows that parenthood is on a daily basis far more frustrating than happy- making. Yet parents are statistically more content than nonparents. Though their short-term pleasure is often thwarted by the needs of childrearing, the subtle-oblique-rewards of parenthood eventually make them more content. Once he establishes the ubiquity of obliquity, Kay offers an abundance of practical instruction for preventing the traps laid by the immediate approach to sophisticated problems. Directness shades us to new information that contradicts our presumptions, fools us into complicated logic with real truth, cuts us faraway from our intuition (which is the subconscious expression in our experience), shunts us from alternative solutions which may be better than the one we're arranged on, and much more. Kay also shows us how to acknowledge our constraints, redefine our goals to match our skills, start our heads to new data and solutions, and otherwise live life with obliquity. This bracing manifesto will influence listeners-or verify their conviction-that the best route to satisfaction and success does not run through the bottom line.
