We are currently witnessing the biggest societal disruption since the Industrial Revolution.

As AI transforms every sector, we are moving from an era of “linear effort” to an era of Power Laws, where the best performers receive the majority of the benefits. In this digital, winner-takes-all economy, being a “generic graduate” is a dangerous gamble.

At Global Admissions, we believe the solution isn’t just getting you into a university; it’s building your Superhuman Core while you’re there.

To thrive, you need more than a certificate. You need a specific framework for the digital frontier. We call this the 2080 Intelligence Curriculum. Here is the roadmap to building a career that doesn’t just survive AI, but masters it.

1. Internal Tools: The Ability to Learn

Learning is the Master Leverage. In an economy that shifts every six months, your ability to “bootload” new skills is more important than the skills themselves.

• The Goal: Moving from passive consumption to aggressive acquisition.

• The Toolkit: Mastering deep work techniques, speed reading, and AI-augmented research. You must learn to use AI not just to “write for you,” but to act as a high-speed tutor that clarifies complex concepts in seconds.

2. M-Shaped Expertise: The New Standard

The “T-shaped” professional (broad knowledge + one deep skill) is becoming a commodity. To be irreplaceable, you must become M-Shaped.

• The Broad Base: A wide understanding of how the world actually works—specifically Economics, Markets, and Entrepreneurship. You must understand the “Surplus” in the economy to know where to position yourself.

• The Two Spikes: Deep expertise in two different industries or disciplines.

  • Example: A Petroleum Engineer who is also a Master Copywriter.

  • Example: A Nurse who understands AI Optimization.

  • Why? Innovation happens at the intersection of two unrelated fields. That intersection is where you find your unique “moat.”

3. Geographical Arbitrage

Living in the “Shire” (the safety of your home country) is a luxury that can lead to stagnation. To win, you must understand multiple markets.

• The Strategy: Leverage two or more geographical areas to find a “Missing Need.”

• The Advantage: By living in places like China, the UAE, or the UK, you see opportunities that people stuck in one location miss. You can buy in one market, sell in another, or build a team in a third. Location independence is a competitive advantage.

4. The Four Types of Leverage

In the Industrial Age, you sold your time. In the Digital Age, you sell results through leverage. To scale, you must master the four levers:

• Capital: Investing money to make more money.

• People: Building and leading teams.

• Code: Creating software or using AI to perform the work of millions.

• Content: Creating media (videos, podcasts, articles) that works for you while you sleep.

If you are not using leverage, you are being outcompeted by those who are. One YouTube video or one piece of code can reach millions; your 1-on-1 time cannot.

5. Proof of Work: Results > Resumes

The “Resume” is a relic of the industrial era—it’s a list of things you say you can do. In the AI age, universities and employers want Proof of Work.

• The Shift: You must show that you can create excellent results online as evidence.

• The Portfolio: This means a GitHub repository, a published Substack, a successful marketing campaign, or a physical product you’ve built. If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.

The Final Duality: Leverage + Humanity

As leverage (tools and AI) becomes more powerful, your “Human Super-Skills” become more valuable. Technology can replicate “Logic,” but it struggles to replicate:

• Empathy and Care

• High-Level Judgement

• Taste and Aesthetics

• Visionary Alignment

Our curriculum is designed to move you into the High Humanity x High Leverage quadrant. This is where you use powerful systems (Code/Content) to solve human problems with “soul.”

The taxi drivers of the world are being displaced. Don’t wait for the same to happen to your industry. Take education into your own hands.

Ready to build your roadmap? > Explore the new Upskilling module on the Global Admissions dashboard to start your M-Shaped journey and find the degree programs that act as the perfect “Edge” for your career.

This is when you are stuck doing low value tasks, but don’t have the cash, ability, or time to train someone to take it over. So you stay stuck doing low leverage tasks.

It could also be called the Low-Leverage Loop Ceiling, for when you’ve hit the limit of your ability to grow.

How to escape the low-leverage loop trap?

Step 1: Define the Destination

Usually, when you are stuck in the Low-Leverage Loop Trap, you want freedom – time back. So you can focus on higher level tasks. But be clear about your long term goal. Is it freedom, cash, scale, legacy, or a mixture.

Ask:

• Do I want cash now? (short-term survival / offense)

• Do I want freedom? (time back / mental space)

• Do I want scale? (growth / impact / movement)

• Do I want legacy? (worldview / culture / long-term systems)

This sets the goalpost.

Pick the primary one for now to solve for as your goalpost.

Eg., freedom now so later you can invest your time to generate cash so you can invest money to build a legacy.

Understand Leverage

Understand the different types of leverage, and your strengths and weaknesses. If you are great at learning, that is the big unlock to everything else.

Some people are naturally better at code and systems, and / or content, but weak at people. Some capital, but not others. Some are only good at one. It depends on your interests and skills.

Your strength, is what you will be doing, when you get out of the low-leverage loop trap.

Your Tasks

Make a list of the task, and then go through this process.

But when you have so many things, how to know which to do first?

Bottleneck – Theory of Least Constraints

Law of Constraints – Core Idea

A system is only as fast, effective, or profitable as its biggest bottleneck.
Improving anything except that bottleneck won’t move the needle.

“What is the single constraint that, if removed, would create the biggest unlock in my life or business?”

Examples

• Factory: A slow machine limits output — upgrading other machines does nothing

• Startup: If support is overloaded, more marketing just creates chaos

• Personal: If you spend 5 hours/day on admin, reading more books won’t solve it

5-Step Theory of Constraints Process:

1. Identify the Constraint
   → What’s the slowest, weakest, most limiting part of the system?

2. Exploit the Constraint
   → Maximize its output with current resources (reduce waste, focus it)

3. Subordinate Everything Else
   → Align the entire system to support the constraint

4. Elevate the Constraint
   → Invest time, people, or capital to remove the bottleneck

5. Repeat
   → The constraint will shift. A new weakest link will appear.

What to Focus on First?

• What’s blocking growth (cash, ops, time)

1. Cash-to-Grow Bottleneck – So Focus on Revenue-Generating Tasks

Bring in cash fast to fund further delegation.

• Sales calls, outreach, content distribution

• Proposal support, follow-up, CRM updates

2. Operations-Stuck Bottleneck – Bottlenecked Ops Tasks

Free up delivery or internal speed.

• Application processing, onboarding, support

• Repetitive workflows or student FAQs

3. Time Bottleneck – Time-Draining Admin

Buy back your time and focus.

• Video editing, email triage, scheduling

• Research, inbox, recurring coordination

4. Clarity Bottleneck (Cognitive Constraint)

You don’t know what to focus on. You’re pulled in too many directions or have idea overwhelm.

Symptoms:

• Scattered tasks

• Unclear priorities

• Constantly shifting direction

Solution:

• Define your goalpost (cash, freedom, scale, legacy)

• Identify the one true constraint (TOC)

• Use a weekly “Focus Filter” to reset

5. Energy Bottleneck (Emotional/Physical Constraint)

You know what to do, but don’t have the energy, motivation, or emotional clarity to act.

Symptoms:

• Burnout, fatigue, decision fatigue

• Avoidance, procrastination

Solution:

• Rest, reduce decision load, simplify systems

• Address internal blocks (fear, perfectionism, overwhelm)

6. Talent Bottleneck (Team Constraint)

You don’t have the right people to take things off your plate or execute properly.

Symptoms:

• Delegation fails or never happens

• You’re always pulled back into ops

Solution:

• Hire for ownership (not just help)

• Build team rhythm + decision frameworks

• Attract high-agency people through content or culture

Long-Term System Builders

Create assets that scale without you.

• SOP creation, automation, hiring funnel

• Metrics dashboards, onboarding flows

Always delegate where the constraint is tightest — and reinvest that time into leverage.

How to know which leverage to focus on? That depends on the 4 types of leverage.

Now you have escaped the low leverage loop trap, you can use leverage!

Activate a Leverage Breakthrough

Build what will multiply future growth.
Use when: you have slack, space, or a window of opportunity.

As I sit here in April 2026, updating the “AI Guide” for my company, Global Admissions, I am struck by how much of our daily lives is now mediated by AI and how this is going to change everything.

In the tech circles of X and Silicon Valley, you’ll see there are multiple different tribes of people. Some are arguing for increasing accleration of technology, others to slow down so that things can be protected.

You might often see people identifying as e/acc (effective accelerationism). They want to floor the gas pedal of technological progress, and this is largely driven by competition - we have to otherwise we will lose.

The counter argument to that is people who want to slow down this acceleration to regulate and do things more slowly so we can limit the mitigate the risks.

But there is a synthesis of those two movements and that is h/acc - a Humanist Accelerationism

Technology should accelerate at breakneck speed, but we need to accelerate the capability of humans at the same rate or more than the technological curve.

The reason many fear this acceleration is that our current economic incentives are distorted. We forget that economics started as a Philosophy. Adam Smith was a philosopher. It is only recently that is has become more mathematical and scientific.

The goal of economics is not unlimited growth. The goal of economics is - what kind of system do we want to live in?

What is missing from e/acc?

Our current systems incentivises e/acc and doesn’t incentivise h/acc.

• In GDP, human are measured as a cost, and AI as an investment - so you can imagine how that will incentivise behaviour.

• We are not building enough housing, this lack of supply increases prices and boosts the economy, increases the economic baseline costs for living reduces birth rates, and robots will come in to solve population decline.

• We are investing in building out data centers but not schools or learning and upgrading.

The economy and technology should serve humans. We should not be the biological bootloader for a machine future; we should be the species that uses machines to finally realise what it means to be fully human.

Human Flourishing and Transcendence is the goal.

In an h/acc framework, the AI is the tool. It makes the human faster and stronger, but the human remains the pilot, and humanity is very much the center.

Humanist Accelerationism is the belief that we should use every tool at our disposal - AI GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), agentic platforms, and global finance - to reach our maximum potential.

The goal is human and civilisational flourishing.

But this is not just a moral argument, it is actually the inevitable future. There is something that is valuable in humans that technology can’t replicate. A nation of flourishing and rapidly improving humans will have a huge advantage compared to one that is left to AI and machines.

Is it worth it?

You don’t need to learn Emirati Arabic to survive in UAE. But why not? It’s fun to learn, and it can open doors when you meet people. Least of all, do it as a form of respect. Learning a language also opens an understanding of the culture, and there is a lot we can learn from Arabic.

The good news is that you can see enormous benefits from just a few hours of learning. You can learn 80% of the language in 20% of the time. Even just a few hours can be useful so you know how to use the basics.

Greetings

• Hello: مرحبا (Marhaba)

• Good morning: صباح الخير (Sabah al-khayr)

• Good evening: مساء الخير (Masa’ al-khayr)

• Goodbye: مع السلامة (Ma’a as-salamah)

Polite Phrases

• Please: من فضلك (Min fadlik)

• Thank you: شكراً (Shukran)

• You’re welcome: عفواً (Afwan)

• Excuse me: عفواً (Afwan) [to get attention] / لو سمحت (Law samaht) [to ask for something]

Basic Questions

• How are you?: كيف حالك؟ (Kayfa halak? – male) / كيف حالك؟ (Kayfa halik? – female)

• What’s your name?: ما اسمك؟ (Ma ismuka? – male) / ما اسمك؟ (Ma ismuki? – female)

• Where are you from?: من أين أنت؟ (Min ayna anta? – male) / من أين أنتي؟ (Min ayna anti? – female)

Directions and Places

• Yes: نعم (Na’am)

• No: لا (La)

• Where is…?: أين…؟ (Ayna…?)

• Hotel: فندق (Fundaq)

• Airport: مطار (Matar)

Numbers

• One: واحد (Wahid)

• Two: اثنين (Ithnayn)

• Three: ثلاثة (Thalatha)

• Ten: عشرة (Ashara)

Miscellaneous

• Water: ماء (Ma’a)

• Food: طعام (Ta’am)

• Help: مساعدة (Musa’ada)

• I don’t understand: لا أفهم (La afham)

Remember, the pronunciation can vary a bit, and it’s always good to listen to native speakers for the correct pronunciation. Additionally, Arabic is written from right to left, so that’s something to keep in mind when reading or writing.

Numbers in Arabic (1 to 1000)

Arabic numbers can be learned efficiently by understanding the pattern they follow. Here’s a brief guide:

1. Basic Numbers (1-10):

   • 1: واحد (Wahid)

   • 2: اثنان (Ithnan)

   • 3: ثلاثة (Thalatha)

   • 4: أربعة (Arba’a)

   • 5: خمسة (Khamsa)

   • 6: ستة (Sitta)

   • 7: سبعة (Sab’a)

   • 8: ثمانية (Thamaniya)

   • 9: تسعة (Tis’a)

   • 10: عشرة (Ashara)

2. Tens (20-100):

   • The pattern is the number + “ون” (for 20, 30…90) and “مئة” for 100.

   • Example: 20: عشرون (Ishrun), 30: ثلاثون (Thalathun), 100: مئة (Mi’a)

3. Hundreds (200-1000):

   • Similar to tens, but with “مئة” (Mi’a) for hundreds.

   • Example: 200: مئتان (Miatan), 300: ثلاثمائة (Thalathmi’a), 1000: ألف (Alf)

4. Combining Numbers:

   • Combine the numbers for tens and units: e.g., 21 is واحد و عشرون (Wahid wa Ishrun).

   • For hundreds, add the hundred and the combination of tens and units: e.g., 125 is مئة و خمسة و عشرون (Mi’a wa Khamsa wa Ishrun).

Days of the Week

• Sunday: الأحد (Al-Ahad)

• Monday: الاثنين (Al-Ithnayn)

• Tuesday: الثلاثاء (Al-Thulatha)

• Wednesday: الأربعاء (Al-Arba’a)

• Thursday: الخميس (Al-Khamis)

• Friday: الجمعة (Al-Jumu’a)

• Saturday: السبت (As-Sabt)

Months of the Year

• January: يناير (Yanayer)

• February: فبراير (Febrair)

• March: مارس (Mars)

• April: أبريل (April)

• May: مايو (Mayo)

• June: يونيو (Younio)

• July: يوليو (Youlio)

• August: أغسطس (Aghustus)

• September: سبتمبر (September)

• October: أكتوبر (Oktober)

• November: نوفمبر (November)

• December: ديسمبر (December)

Additional Greetings

• Good night: تصبح على خير (Tusbih ala khair)

• Welcome: أهلاً وسهلاً (Ahlan wa sahlan)

• Long time no see: لم نرك منذ زمن (Lam naraka mundu zaman)

• Salam Alaikum (السلام عليكم): This means “Peace be upon you”. It’s a very common greeting in the Arabic-speaking world.

• Wa Alaikum Assalam (وعليكم السلام): This is the response to “Salam Alaikum”, meaning “And upon you be peace”.

• Ahlan wa Sahlan (أهلاً وسهلاً): A warm welcome greeting, meaning “Hello and welcome”.

• Sabah al-Khayr (صباح الخير): “Good morning”.

• Masa’ al-Khayr (مساء الخير): “Good evening”.

Other Ways to Say Yes

• Certainly: بالتأكيد (Balta’kid)

• Of course: طبعاً (Taba’an)

Basic Conversation Phrases

1. I need help: أحتاج مساعدة (Ahtaju musa’ada)

2. Can you speak English?: هل تتكلم الإنجليزية؟ (Hal tatakallam al-ingliziyya?)

3. I don’t understand: لا أفهم (La afham)

4. How much is this?: كم هذا؟ (Kam hadha?)

5. Where is the bathroom?: أين الحمام؟ (Ayn al-hammam?)

6. I’m sorry: آسف (Asif – male) / آسفة (Asifa – female)

7. I’m looking for…: أبحث عن… (

When engaging in a conversation, especially in a different language and cultural context like Arabic in the UAE, there are several useful things to keep in mind:

Useful Phrases

• Asking for Clarification:

  • “Can you repeat that, please?” – هل يمكنك تكرار ذلك من فضلك؟ (Hal yumkinuk takrar thalika min fadlik?)

  • “What does [word] mean?” – ما معنى [word]؟ (Ma ma’na [word]?)

• Expressing Opinions and Preferences:

  • “I think…” – أعتقد… (A’taqid…)

  • “I prefer…” – أفضل… (Ufaddil…)

• Agreeing and Disagreeing:

  • “I agree” – أوافق (Uwaafiq)

  • “I disagree” – لا أوافق (La uwaafiq)

• Asking for Suggestions:

  • “What do you recommend?” – ماذا تنصح؟ (Maza tansah?)

Titles and Respect

• Use of Titles: Addressing someone with their proper title is important. For instance, “Mr.” and “Mrs.” are translated as “سيد” (Sayyid) for men and “سيدة” (Sayyidah) for women. For someone with a professional or academic title, like a doctor, use “دكتور” (Duktur) for a man and “دكتورة” (Dukturah) for a woman.

• Respecting Elders: Elders are highly respected in Arabic culture. Always use polite language and formal titles when addressing someone older.

Hospitality and Gestures

• Hospitality: Hospitality is a cornerstone of Arabic culture. Accepting food and drink when offered is seen as polite and respectful.

• Gestures: Be mindful of gestures. For example, using the right hand for eating and greeting is important, as the left hand is considered impure.

Conversation Topics

• Avoid Sensitive Topics: Topics like politics, religion, and personal matters are often avoided in initial meetings. Stick to general topics like the weather, food, or culture.

• Praising and Compliments: Giving compliments on things like hospitality or food is appreciated, but avoid personal compliments in a formal setting or with the opposite gender.

Indirect Communication

• Avoiding Direct Refusal: In many Arabic cultures, people avoid saying ‘no’ directly. Instead, they might use phrases like “إن شاء الله” (Insha’Allah – God willing) to mean something might not happen.

• Reading Between the Lines: Communication can often be indirect. Pay attention to non-verbal cues and implications.

Time and Punctuality

• Flexible Time Concept: Time can be more flexible in Arabic culture. Appointments may not always start exactly on time, and social visits can last longer than expected.

• Punctuality Variance: In business settings, punctuality is respected. However, in social settings, being slightly late is often acceptable.

Dress and Appearance

• Conservative Dress: Dressing conservatively is important, especially for women. It’s respectful to cover shoulders and knees.

• Grooming: Being well-groomed and presentable is highly valued in social and professional settings.

These tips reflect general tendencies, but individual experiences may vary. Being observant and adaptable to specific social cues during your interactions will also be very helpful.

Relationship Building

• Personal Relationships: Business and social life in the Arab world often rely heavily on personal relationships and trust. Taking time to build rapport and showing interest in your counterpart’s well-being is important.

• Invitations and Visits: If you’re invited to someone’s home, it’s polite to bring a small gift, like sweets or pastries. Remember to remove your shoes if you see shoes at the entrance.

Communication Style

• Indirectness: In many Arab cultures, communication tends to be more indirect. People often use storytelling or roundabout ways to convey their message, especially in sensitive situations.

• High-Context Communication: Much is communicated through context, tone, and body language, rather than just words. Pay attention to these non-verbal cues.

Dining Etiquette

• Eating with Hands: It’s common to eat with the right hand, especially when traditional food is served. The left hand is generally considered impure.

• Generosity and Hospitality: Arabs are known for their hospitality. It’s common to be offered more food; refusing immediately might be considered rude. It’s polite to accept at least a small amount.

Religion and Practices

• Islamic Practices: Understanding and respecting Islamic practices, such as prayer times and fasting during Ramadan, is crucial. Avoid eating, drinking, or smoking in public during daylight hours in Ramadan.

• Dress Code During Religious Times: Be extra mindful of the dress code during religious periods. Dressing conservatively is appreciated.

Business Etiquette

• Formality in Business: Initial meetings are usually formal. It’s important to address people by their full title and last name until invited to do otherwise.

• Decision Making: Decisions may take longer, as they often involve consultation with many people. Patience is key in business dealings.

Social Norms and Public Behavior

• Public Displays of Affection: These are generally frowned upon, especially in more traditional areas.

• Photography: Always ask for permission before taking photos of people, particularly women and children.

Understanding of Time

• Flexible Approach to Time: Time can be perceived more fluidly, and schedules may not be as rigid as in Western cultures.

Gender Interactions

• Gender Dynamics: In more traditional settings, there are norms regarding interactions between men and women. Wait for a woman to extend her hand for a handshake first.

Language

• Learning Basic Arabic: Even learning a few basic phrases in Arabic can go a long way in showing respect and can greatly enhance your interactions.

Greetings

• Hello: مرحبا (Marhaba)

• Good morning: صباح الخير (Sabah al-khayr)

• Good evening: مساء الخير (Masa’ al-khayr)

• Goodbye: مع السلامة (Ma’a as-salamah)

Politeness

• Please: من فضلك (Min fadlik)

• Thank you: شكراً (Shukran)

• You’re welcome: عفواً (Afwan)

• Excuse me / Sorry: عفواً (Afwan)

Basic Questions

• How are you?: كيف حالك؟ (Kayfa halak? – male) / كيف حالك؟ (Kayfa halik? – female)

• What’s your name?: ما اسمك؟ (Ma ismuka? – male) / ما اسمك؟ (Ma ismuki? – female)

• Where is the bathroom?: أين الحمام؟ (Ayna al-hammam?)

Making Requests

• Can you help me?: هل يمكنك مساعدتي؟ (Hal yumkinuka musa’adati?)

• How much is this?: بكم هذا؟ (Bikam hadha?)

Travel

• Where is…?: أين…؟ (Ayna…?)

• I want to go to…: أريد الذهاب إلى… (Uridu an adhhab ila…)

Dining Out

• I would like…: أود… (Urid…)

• The bill, please: الفاتورة، من فضلك (Al-fatura, min fadlik)

In Case of Emergency

• Help!: النجدة! (Al-najda!)

• I need a doctor: أحتاج إلى طبيب (Ahtaju ila tabib)

Expressing Basic Needs

• I don’t understand: لا أفهم (La afham)

• Do you speak English?: هل تتكلم الإنجليزية؟ (Hal tatakallam al-ingliziyya?)

The highest leverage activity you can do is thinking about your thinking. You can reprogram your mind, you can overcome any limitation. But as we move to a higher level, there are other traps and limitations to overcome. The challenge is that many of these are counter-intuitive. That’s why they’re traps. Just like you’d think working harder should bring you greater success (as the most obvious one).

If you are not growing exponentially, there are either reasons that are blocking you, or you do not understand what is necessary for the next level. Progress - in technology, and language learning, and everything else, moves in a series of S curves.

There are these lessons all around. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Define the Vision

It all starts with the vision of where you are going. There are infinite possibilities and choices.

It’s powerful because often the world around us gives the illusion of being permanent and real, but it is very temporary and was nearly completely created by your past self. You are the only person in the world experiencing your current reality, and it’s a result of what you visualised and created before. When you start interacting with it, you realise it’s not real, it's an illusion, it’s as if you are in a hallway with multiple doorways to your future visions.

In some way, your future visions are as real as your current reality. Both of them exist nearly completely in your mind as “hallucinations” and exist only by you. By focusing on your current reality you can re-create it, by focusing on your vision you can navigate current reality that is unfolding and create your vision.

So the question is, what is your vision? Out of all the possible options, which game are you trying to play?

We need multiple levels of visions. The long term life vision is one, but the vision for each project is another, and the vision for the day to day is another.
- Life Vision - future destination and future self
- Vision of Each Project
- Day to Day Vision

Build the Vision Muscle

There are several traps with learning how to create visions. The first is to not set any vision at all, to trust your current reality too much, to set visions that are too lofty and too far away, and be distracted by too many visions.

It’s an advantage to practice setting short term visions. Sports, such as football or rugby or cricket, are an excellent example of activating the vision muscle, because you are effectively acting in real time predicting, and visualising possible outcomes. It’s a great way to practice it quickly.

You can then extend that out to smaller projects, such as visualising your day, and visualising specific scenarios around you. You can then project this out for your life, career and each specific project and long term you are working on.

The key is to have a vision for everything. Wherever you put your attention, visualise where you see it going and where you want it to go. Practice and build that muscle. Build your intention.

Distraction

One of the biggest dangers is distraction. Distraction is something that either pulls in your attention or diverts you “any stimulus that consumes attention without yielding a return on investment”.

So having too many visions can be distracting if it pulls you away from making progress in any, or the most important ones.

There are also people who will attempt to divert you as you make progress. You need to overcome those.

So there is an art to understanding how many visions you can manage and limiting them so it’s easier to achieve the most important ones.

Structure Vs Creativity

There is a friction between structure and creativity. For me I’m someone who just has constantly new ideas about everything I’m working on. We need to have freedom and expansive time to create and grow and ideate and strategise and play, but we need structure to execute and operate.

There is a reason every organ of the body has a specific and clearly defined function. As you grow you are essentially moving from a simple single celled organism to a multi-cellular organism, to a person to a company to a society. At each stage you need different principles to grow. You also need to build more structure so you can support the growth. The heart focuses on blood pumping. Whereas in single celled organisms the organism has fewer needs and ability to specialise.

Just like a human body, we need a time and a space for creativity, and recreation, and excretion and cleaning and breathing, and rebuilding. And as we become more capable we need more specialisation and structure.

It’s important because often something that holds us back is that things bleed into each other. For example, we get anxious and don’t sleep, we think about ideas all day, we need to contain everything. When blood is not contained it fails to work and affects other parts of the system. The brain won’t work if it’s not contained. Muscles and bones need to be separate to work properly.

That’s where time boxing comes in, and curating and becoming more specialised at each part. That’s also why at each S curve and at each level of growth we need to re-create and re-imagine what we are from the ground up.

Building Structure

We need structure in every project we have, and in our own time and goal setting. Here are a few mental models to think about structure.

Each of our needs need to have their own structure that is protected and separate from the other. What are these? Sleep, nutrition, socialising, warmth, financials, learning, executive functions, health and repair.

In this I’m going to talk about executive functions. Being the CEO of ourselves.

Sleep

What is the function of sleep? It’s to wash out and clean our brain. This is something we need to protect to serve it’s function and optimise our day. That’s why it’s essential to turn off and become great at sleep to function well.

Sleep teaches us a valuable lesson. That of the value of letting go.

When we try to focus more on our goals and our sleep suffers, it makes it harder to operate well the next day. Letting go and having a less tight grip at the right time allows us do better and have a stronger grip the next day.

3 Things Per Day

A great tactic to plan the day is to just focus on the top 3 things to do each day. Out of all the 25+ things you can be working on. What are the top 3? This saves time, you don’t need to think about everything, and it ensures you don’t try to do too much - and get stretched too thin, and it enables you to focus better.

Time-Boxing

This is another structure that enables us to operate better by setting a task for each time block.

Achieve Success by Aiming for Something Else

Often the best way to achieve success in some area is indirectly - to focus on another area. The Portuguese learnt this by discovering the Volta do Mar.

Nearly every path to success is a Volta Do Mar.

You don’t get money by getting money. You get it by building the best product and business and giving the most value. You don’t find love directly, you do it by being the best you can be and giving love. You don’t find happiness directly, you do it by making others happy. You can’t fall asleep by trying to sleep. You do it by relaxing or reading a book.

Forcing Functions

There are a number of forcing functions that work well as:

• Writing ideas and publishing them, like this one is a great way to get your ideas out and develop them

• By getting involved in sales everyday, it shows you were the bottleneck is.

• Creating content is too also helps you to be aligned and it builds leverage.

• Surrounding by talented people - it raises you up and improves your game.

How to Conquer Distraction and Level Up?

By understanding the system, by creating structure, by having a place for everything.

The most powerful supercomputer ever to exist is inside your head and uses the electricity power of a low voltage lightbulb.

Recently I’ve done a deep dive into the human mind and I’m sharing my notes to keep as a reference.

We can break it into hardware and software. Hardware is the different parts of the brain and how they fit together the physical parts - typically what a Neurosurgeon specialises in. The electrics and how they work together is what a Neurologist specialises in. The code and software is what Psychologists focus on. Understanding the hardware is essential to optimise the software around it.

Our brain is incredibly neuroplastic which means it can adapt incredibly well. Neurons that fire together wire together. We can build it consciously and strengthen it and design our own brain and also optimise the software.

There are also ways to strengthen it such as by exercise and rest and socialising that can protect against age related decline and improve it. Exercise such as anaerobic exercise which generates a sort of fertiliser (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) for growing new parts of the brain and strengthening existing ones. Aerobic exercise Acts like “Cooling” for the processor, reducing inflammation and improving blood flow (Power Supply).

Each part of the brain is typically focused on a specific function. The frontal lobe for example is the CEO of the brain. The eyesight is towards the back of the brain. By exercising we can fertilise this certain part of the brain.

Our brain operates with a certain frequency at different times. From high wave to low wave. This is essential to understand because they are like gears on a car. When you are operating in a low frequency (relaxed in a dream like state) it’s more for generalised cross brain work across different function. When you are at a high frequency it’s more specialised on a certain task.

• High Frequency (Beta/Gamma): Focused “Sprint” mode. High energy, high specialized output.

• Mid Frequency (Alpha): “Flow” mode. The bridge between the conscious and subconscious. Best for learning.

• Low Frequency (Theta/Delta): “Defrag” mode. This is where the brain consolidates memory and makes creative connections across different “folders” (functions).

Trying to revv the brain to the max is unnecessary and counterproductive. Relax into the flow of the certain mode, and consciously decide which mode you want to be in. You can use music or exercise to get into that frequency.

Often when we are around others, our brains sync to the same frequency. Part of small talk in conversations is a sync of frequencies and alignment of using certain parts of the brain.

Also different parts of the brain work and fire together for different tasks. When you are running for example or playing the piano it is using different parts of the brain to when you are doing maths, or giving a speech. It’s possible to use different parts of the brain at different times which can be much more efficient, and you can feel less tired because some parts are resting while others are working.

When you are performing a certain task, you can also mute different parts of the brain by practice. To optimise the brain, muting the other parts of the brain is not just better for focus, but it uses less energy, and it increases the efficiency within which that certain system performs.

Meditation is a great way to practice this. As other alerts come up, you can just bring your focus back to a certain way of thinking. It also acts as a way to clean or relax the brain.

Previously, I would frequently use different parts of the brain at the same time, and constantly want to have the big picture in my mind which was incredibly inefficient. Just by writing out the plan and leaving it on a desk and forgetting about it, can hugely increase the efficiency and ability to perform at task.

Cleaning the brain is essential because using it produces waste. Especially if it is being revved up - anxious, or using multiple parts of the brain at the same time. These accumulate in the ventricles - your brain has a large body of water in the middle of it that cleans out and replenishes it. Rest and sleep should therefore forget every other function and just switch off.

The Glymphatic System is the brain's "dishwasher." It only opens up during deep sleep to flush out toxins like adenosine (the chemical that makes you feel "sleep pressure").

Social media can be disruptive for many reasons but because it trains the brain to fire in a certain way which can be deprimental to focus.

As we now have external AI we can learn to outsource parts of our functions, memory and processes to external computer, which frees us up to improve and optimise our own computer and use it most efficiently.

It’s also great to measure your brain, to get scans, and to take a range of tests such as memory and functional tests. This acts as a baseline in case you can notice trends in the future, and you can also optimise it.

My main takeaways are:

• Understand the brain and how it works can give an advantage to optimise our code as we use external computers more

• Consciously design and build it

• We can rewrite and optimise our code and processes

• Focus on certain tasks at a time and forget others

• Exercise, socialise, rest, and feed it well

Don’t revv it to the max. Understand, look after and grow it.

The internet is not full of a big load of individual people, it’s a load of different markets and interest groups. Each person is in multiple different groups.

When an article or content hits some gas, it means you are onto something. You can keep exploring that topic, going deeper, getting better, or keep exploring for different topics.

I can write excellent articles about studying in China and scholarships in China, not just because I understand the topic deeply, but because I can understand the audience deeply. I know every question they have, because I’ve seen them in my comments and in emails.

• How do I get a scholarship

• Which one is suitable for me

• Which documents are needed?

I know them before I ever start writing, and that means I’m already writing for someone in mind.

Creating content is not so much about understanding the topic as it is understanding the audience and presenting it in the way that they care about.

When writing a topic we often miss out the most important part - understanding the audience. And this makes a huge difference - between presenting information, and really tailoring it to the target and what they care about - because we have all the questions they’ve asked us in their mind before.

This is the same for business and politics. It’s essential to understand all the different subgroups and what they care about.

“Empathy Arbitrage” is a concept that turns the traditional idea of “authority” on its head. It’s based on the observation that in the digital world, the person who understands the user’s struggle often beats the person who holds the PhD. Most “talented” people fail at content because they are too close to their subject. They suffer from the “Curse of Knowledge.”

Too often people research content, facts and data, and not enough time spent studying people.

Don’t be the expert who understands the topic the most, be the person who understands the audience the best.

So which audience do you want to serve?

Then seek to understand everything about them, what they read now, what questions they have and concerns and doubts and dreams and tailor the content to them. Finding the specific questions is less about being a writer and more about being a Digital Detective.

It’s often easier to target smaller, under-served niche groups and then expand outwards, as there is less competition. Or even newly formed groups for which there is a lack of content.

For me - ambitious people who love learning and improving.

So here’s a prompt you can use. Copy and paste this article into AI, and ask:"
”Give me 5 persona’s of people I’d like to make content for”
”Based on the theory of Empathy Arbitrage, identify 5 high-pressure sub-groups I am uniquely qualified to serve, and tell me the one question they are too embarrassed to ask an 'Expert'.”

How to understand them?

• Reddit Search Operators: Use site:reddit.com "how do I" [Topic] or site:reddit.com "scared" [Topic]. This filters for intent and emotion. Look for the “Rant” or “Help” flairs.

• The “Zero-Reply” Filter: Look for threads on Reddit or Niche Forums with many upvotes but zero or poor replies. That is an untapped pool of gas. The community wants the answer, but the “Experts” haven’t provided a good one yet.

• Quora “Answer Wanted”: Go to Quora and look at the “Requests” or “Unanswered” sections for your topic. Look for questions with a high “Follower” count but no authoritative answer.

Search engines are the world’s largest confessional booths. People tell Google things they are too embarrassed to tell a friend.

• The Asterisk Technique: Go to a Google search bar and type: [Topic] is * or How to * [Topic] without *.

  • Example: Scholarships are * might reveal “Scholarships are scams” or “Scholarships are impossible for [Group].” That’s your empathy hook.

• AnswerThePublic / AlsoAsked: These tools aggregate the “People Also Ask” boxes from Google. They reveal the branching logic of an audience’s confusion.

• YouTube Comment Mining: Go to the most popular video in your niche. Filter by “Newest First.” Look for the phrase “But what about...” or “I’m still confused by...” These are the cracks in the expert’s armor.

• Use the “Signal-to-Noise” Filter

  Once you find 50 questions, you need to know which one is the “gas pool.”

  • High Volume + High Emotion = Gas. * If people are asking the question with words like “terrified,” “confused,” “honestly,” or “please,” you have hit the vein.

So, if you got to the end of this article, please tell me something about yourself and what you care about.

Before T-shaped expertise - deep expertise in one area and the ability to understand and collaborate with others was enough. But in the age of AI, it is no longer defensible. AI is better at that narrow, predictable data. Those educated in a single silo are most easily replaceable. Defensibility now lives at the intersections.

On an individual level, being M-shaped - having multiple pillars of deep expertise - allows you to apply the rigor of one discipline to the chaos of another. It allows you to see the opportunities that narrow experts miss.

M-shaped is not about being a jack of all trades, master of none. The “M” is multiple DEEP pillars of expertise - a “Poly-Specialist”.

But it is even more important on a societal level. To have more multi-experts. If we train and work in silos, we create echo chambers, group think and intellectual narrowing which is like re-arranging the deckchairs while the titanic is sinking.

But when we have multi-experts these become painfully obvious.

Different disciplines have different advantages and disadvantages. And the rigor, and insights from one subject can be applied to another.

During the Renaissance, the Medici family brought together artists, scientists, bankers, and philosophers in Florence. That "M-shaped" ecosystem created the most explosive era of human progress in history.

Many of the best discoveries and breakthroughs came from cross-polination.

- The origin of Computer Programming came from Silk Weaving. Joseph Marie Jacquard used punched cards to tell a weaving loom which threads to lift to create complex patterns in silk which was then incorporated in computer programming.

- Neural networks was the mixing of biology and computing.

- The printing press came from the wine industry.

- Henry Ford developed the assembly line came by studying meatpacking.

They are all connected and are branches in a single tree of unified knowledge. As Einstein said: “All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree.”

Many of the most successful business people actually studied engineering. The best product managers studied art. The most effective politicians came from law, engineering or business.

We desperately need more of that cross-pollination.

We don’t just need leaders who “know about” different things and defer to experts. We need multi-experts.

We need physics in economics, art in technology, and the empathy of literature and philosophy in the development of AI.

- Florence Nightingale was so influential because of her abilities in statistics and created the first version of the pie chart. She proved that over 7 times more soldiers died from preventable illnesses than combat wounds.

- Steve Jobs brought the rigor of calligraphy and design to computing.

Every individual can become more effective if they learn multiple areas of expertise and tools of leverage - ability to create content, create code, allocate capital, and connect with and lead people.

But there are disadvantages in this. It’s takes longer to become expert in two or more disciplines, and it can be distracting. So it’s about finding the balance. We don’t want everyone to be M shaped otherwise we suffer from the opposite - lack of really intense specialisation on one domain that is rapidly developing, and some people may be suited more to W M or N shaped, X, T, I or even _ shaped however those can be interpreted. But usually, when we reached the limit to a certain level of progress like in economics, we can benefit from more M shapers.

The era of the “narrow specialist” is ending. The future belongs to the M-shaped mind and societies - those who can see the bigger picture and connect the dots.

I am of the belief that if you are not growing exponentially, there is a bottleneck or a problem to resolve. While at the same time growth is not linear and exponential when you look at it closely. It has plateaus and bursts of growth

Alex Hormozi has a great analogy which is that growth, success and self-improvement is like building a ladder. You have to build the left side and the right side and each rung. You don’t build the ladder evenly, sometimes the right side or left side might be built, but the middle is missing a rung, which prevents you from progressing.

There are an infinite number of ladders around for us to choose based on the industry and goals, and who we are but they all have similarities. The ladder never ends, after reaching one ladder, there is another one, we can always improve and become better.

We often suffer from a blindness because we have one field of view. We often get stuck but we don’t know why we are stuck. That’s because we are looking up. We need to be able to see ladder from 360 degrees.

It’s very hard to understand ourselves objectively, which is why it is essential to create mirrors around to seek feedback and how to improve.

There are six main types of mirrors we can use

1. Being around successful people

2. Romantic Relationships

3. 1 on 1 Mentors

4. Hobbies and Other Interests

5. Reading biographies

6. AI

I will briefly touch on each one and share how they can help to progress along the ladder, and then focus on AI.

Being around successful people

This is one of the surest ways to progress, because you are basically meeting other people and seeing their own ladders, and you can ask their advice to look at your own ladder. This is great because often you can realise how simple it is to build the rest of the ladder. If they can do it, and you are just as capable as them, then you can do it too. And also you can absorb their thought processes which helps to improve and better able to progress. The psychological barrier to your own next step vanishes.

1 on 1 Mentors

Working with 1 on 1 mentors can also help because they can give feedback and suggestions based on their own experiences. It’s like hiring someone who has built their own ladder to help you build yours. The main trick is finding someone who can help best. The value here isn't just advice - it’s the precision of their feedback based on having made your exact mistakes already.

Romantic Relationships

A truly aligned partner is the most intimate mirror you will ever have. Romantic relationships are a great way to accelerate your own success because, if it is healthy, you both want the best for each other. In a great relationship both people are improving themselves, to be the right person for their partner, and then improving their partner, so they get into a loop of self improvement creating a compounding effect on both your lives. You can also overcome relationship challenges and the answer is often that you need to improve.

Hobbies and Other Interests

Often we can progress by working on other things such as art or writing or martial arts. We will often meet the same sorts of challenges as we do in our work, and we are presented with a different way of looking at it. For example, if someone has a discipline problem, they might not realise it if they work for themselves as an artist, but if they are training in martial arts, their peers and coach will often point it out.

The tree of knowledge is also deeply connected, and learning another topic can also reveal universal truths that apply to everything else.

Reading Biographies

Reading biographies also gives us a way to understand the life trajectories of others, the challenges they overcame and decisions they made. This helps us to zoom out and see things differently.

AI

AI is a new technology that we can use ourselves and it serves as one useful tool in the above framework. AI is the first "mirror" that is both objective and can be proactive. While human mirrors have egos and schedules, AI is a 24/7 analytical partner so you can stay up until 5am to resolve an issue and break past it.

With AI you can reveal your challenges and thought processes for feedback and suggestions which serves as a universal mirror that has access to the world’s knowledge.

In order to use AI to improve yourself, you can upload your own goals, philosophy and journal and notes for feedback periodically and it can analyse and give feedback.

But the problem is that for AI to give you the right feedback and to really understand you you need to present it in the right way.

Writing, and giving it that data, is one first step.

It helps to have a framework for that, but also to turbocharge it with the other areas.

• Writing and getting your thoughts on paper is one crucial step because when we write we think more clearly and it helps to resolve recurring thought processes and see them more clearly.

• Learning skills that will be useful.

• Identifying, building and upgrading your identity.

• Definitions - one problem with AI is that many of the suggestions it gives are generic, which is because it is trained on the average of the world’s data.

• Goals and goal tracking

• Timeboxing

• Etc.,

That’s what I’m building for myself, my own personal platform to improve myself.

One of the differences between how many of us use AI is that it is reactive. We prompt it to get to know the answer. But the problem is that we often don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why it needs to be proactive.

Then we can build a loop where the AI is constantly giving feedback so we can grow exponentially. Together with the other mirrors that can help we can overcome and keep building and progressing.

If you are interested in learning more subscribe and leave a comment.

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This creates a brutal “Catch-22” for graduates: Companies are increasingly reluctant to hire people without experience, but because those entry-level roles are now being handled by AI, there are fewer places to gain that experience. The drawbridge between graduation and employment isn’t just widening - it’s gone.

The End of the “Paid-to-Learn” Era

The truth is, the bar for entry has been raised. In the past, companies were willing to pay to train you. Today, the shift from the market is clear: We won’t pay you to learn; you must learn to be paid.

Education must now be a blend of theory and practice. An academic degree without applicable skills is incomplete. The transition between school and work is no longer a hand-off; it’s a gradual merger.

You cannot wait for graduation to begin your career; you must start “doing” while you are still “studying.”

For a student, this means starting early. Experimenting with tools and focusing on a specific niche is more essential than ever. If you aren’t using leverage in a leveraged world, you are being outcompeted by those who are.

Agency: Becoming Entrepreneurial & The Best

When the career ladder has been taken away, it means that you now need to take that into your own hands by building your own grappling hook. One that you can control, and you can direct wherever you want.

As AI becomes the “commodity” labor, the most valuable skills shift from doing to direction. It is essential to stop thinking like an employee waiting for a career path and start thinking like an owner, creator, and producer.

The competition is no longer other people, but it’s increasingly AI.

The more AI develops, the less valuable labor becomes. The ability to now use these tools means that average is now effectively invisible Excellence becomes a necessity.

That means that very very specific skills that nobody else can do becomes irreplacable. It’s actually relatively easy to become the best at the world at something if you narrow your focus enough. You can then widen it later.

That’s what I did when I stared my career by becoming the best in the world at recruitment of law students to China, partly because nobody else was doing it - so I had no competition. Super niche, and then I expanded outwards from that niche.

Build a Grappling Hook, Not a Resume

The grappling hook is also your “Proof of Work” - tangible evidence that you can provide value before you even have a job title.

A grappling hook isn’t a list of classes you took; it’s what you’ve actually built:

• Proof of Work: A public portfolio, a specialized GitHub repository, or a niche newsletter.

• AI Mastery: Being the person who knows how to prompt a specific AI tool for a specific industry better than the senior managers.

• Strategic Contribution: Solving a real problem for a company you admire and sending them the solution before they even post a job opening.

• Building in Public: Documenting your learning process on LinkedIn or a blog to show your trajectory, consistency, and professional taste.

Mastering the Four Pillars of Leverage

In the digital economy, the more AI develops, the less valuable labor becomes.

To bridge the experience gap, graduates must lean into leverage. Leverage allows a small amount of human effort to produce exponential results. Rather than just selling your time for a wage, you must learn to utilize the one or more of the four primary types of leverage:

1. Code: Using software or “no-code” tools to perform the work of a thousand people.

2. Content: Producing media (videos, blogs, podcasts) that can reach a global audience 24/7 without extra effort.

3. Capital: Directing financial resources to scale an idea or solve a problem.

4. People: Coordinating teams and building networks to multiply your output.

Key Insight: If you aren’t using leverage in a leveraged world, you are being outcompeted by those who are. The goal is to move from “low-leverage loops” (like data entry) into high-leverage roles that require human empathy, judgment, and alignment.

I have written more about how to build a successful career here

TLDR: After 25 years of managing asthma in the UK with inhalers, I moved to China and Malaysia and found a permanent "cure" for $200. The secret was a simple IgE allergy test that the NHS rarely offers. While 80%+ of asthma is allergic, only 2% of UK patients get tested for allergies. I’m sharing the data on why the UK has 3x the asthma rate of China, the link to dust mites, and how you can take control of your own diagnostic journey.

*This is my own experience and not medical advice - please consult with a doctor before changing treatment plans.

I am sharing my experiences after reflecting on my own experiences and also after reading articles about unfortunate cases of Asthma, also reflecting on a conversation with a parent of a student who was considering moving to China but had asthma, and my discussions with nurses in UK and Malaysia.

I will first share my own experience and then my interpretation of it and then my conclusions after researching the wider issues. I’m obviously not a qualified doctor, so it shouldn’t be taken as advice. If sharing this might incentivise just one person to get allergy tested it could potentially improve a quality of life or save a life and that would be worth it.

I had mild asthma and hayfever from a young age which, as I think is the reflection of most people, is more of a nuisance than anything serious with it sometimes being quite limiting during summer periods. I would go to get preventative medication at least twice every year. I am now completely free from both Asthma and Hayfever which I have interpreted as having the same trigger.

It is commonly stated that there is no cure, but that sometimes people grow out of it. My experiences suggests a different way of looking at it.

Something that really surprised me was that when I went to China at 20 years old, which has supposedly higher levels of pollution, my asthma completely cleared up.

After moving to UAE and back to UK, I would then occasionally get Asthma and / or hayfever, but never in China.

It wasn’t until I was in Malaysia that I had more wheezing and sneezing, especially when I put on a specific jumper, that I got a IgE blood test (which cost $200 USD) and received a report that it was a dust mite allergy. After looking into it it made perfect sense that this was the causes.

Dust Mite Allergies

Dust mites are invisible to the naked eye, but the average pillow contains between 100,000 and 10 million microscopic dust mites. They feed on dead skin cells of which the average person sheds 1.5 grams per day. The average releases 20 waste pellets daily. After two years, up to 10% of a pillow's weight can consist of dust mites, their droppings, and dead skin cells. It makes sense that this material might be irritating if breathed in, as dust mites are literally designed to break down and consume skin cells. The allergen is actually a digestive enzyme (Der p 1) which is found in their droppings.

The solution was therefore to eliminate dust mites - specific anti-mite bedding, more frequent frequent washing and changing of bedding, clothes, drying outside and cleaning and an anti-mite spray which I sprayed everywhere - bedding and clothes. Since making these changes 2 years ago, I have not had any asthma or allergy.

Cured?

In that sense I have cured my asthma. Some might debate about whether this is a cure or not. Cure can be defined as - restore health and eliminate a disease or problem so it's not expected to return. And if that is the definition then it is cured. From a medical definition I am still allergic and could be triggered again. However it is framed, I’m in a much better position as I understand the trigger. It’s possible that I could have become allergic to it because of a high exposure when I was younger.

Dust Mites Aren’t Good for Anyone

Even if you don’t have asthma, sleeping in a bed full of mites isn’t good for you.

It can trap you in a state of chronic sub-clinical inflammation. In this state, your immune system is never truly at rest; it's constantly deploying resources to fight off the digestive enzymes (Der p 1) found in mite droppings that you inhale throughout the night, which can make you more susceptible to other diseases.

This often presents as "unexplained" morning grogginess, brain fog, or a slightly congested nose that you’ve simply accepted as your "normal" baseline.

Removing this trigger doesn't just prevent illness; it unlocks a higher level of daily vitality, clarity, and "flow" that most people don't even realize they are missing until they finally experience a truly clean environment.

Testing for Allergies

What was surprising to me was that for my whole life in UK, after about 30-50 visits, I was continually given medication with speculation about what the cause was - that it could be pollen related and never once given an allergy test.

After researching this I have found that while between 80-90% of asthma sufferers caused by an allergy, only 2% are tested, and less than 1/3 of more serious cases are ever tested despite the evidence showing that the majority are caused by an allergy, with the majority being dust mite allergies.

While looking at the most serious cases of asthma, it seems even more alarming. There are about 1500 people dying of asthma in UK per year (about 4 per day). When experts reviewed the cases of 54 children who died from asthma, they found:

• 54% were known to have allergies that contributed to their asthma.

• 35% (19 out of 54 children) had no information at all about allergies in their medical records.

• 17% (9 children) were recorded as having “no known allergies”- but the report suggests that in many of these cases, the tests were simply never done.

In other words, half of the children had allergies and the other half were never tested, suggesting it was a complete "black hole" in their medical history. The report identifies "poor record-keeping" and "poor communication around allergies" as potentially modifiable (preventable) factors in these deaths. The report explicitly states that nearly two-thirds of asthma deaths in the UK are avoidable.

Why doesn’t the UK test?

In Malaysia allergy testing is standard and costs a maximum of 200 GBP.

I looked into why the UK doesn’t test, but Malaysia does. It could be related to incentives and the extra steps to refer to a specialist compared to relative ease of giving an inhaler as medicine.

There can also be some pressure or incentives from the asthma medication manufacturers who also fund research and guidelines on how to treat Asthma.

Asthma medicine is a big industry worth $25 Billion USD per year expected to reach $35 Billion in 10 years.

Constructive Not Criticism

I’m hugely grateful for the incredible support that I received and the amazing people working in healthcare who I believe are heroes. This piece is not intended as a criticism of them, but perhaps the incentives in the system, I am sharing my personal experiences and personal conclusions as a patient - which has the potential to improve quality of life, save money and resources which can be put towards other more issues and save lives.

Comparing Asthma Globally

Zooming out, the numbers are huge. As of early 2026, 5.4 million people in the UK are currently receiving treatment for asthma. The UK, US, Canada, and Australia, have some of the highest rates of Asthma in the world with hotspots in Honduras. The NHS spends $4 billion on Asthma each year.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/asthma-rates-by-country

If more people in UK received tests, this could reduce huge suffering, wasted time and resources and save lives.

Why UK has 3x Asthma than China?

We are taught that pollution is the primary enemy of the asthmatic. But my experience suggests that it’s humidity

The “Mite-Killer” Climate (Beijing): While Beijing is famous for its smog, its climate is a natural “mite-reset.” Dust mites physically cannot survive in humidity levels below 50% - they desiccate and die. Beijing’s extreme, bone-dry winters effectively wipe out the mite population every single year. In that environment, the “invisible trigger” simply doesn’t exist.

The “UK Incubator”: Contrast this with the UK’s “Temperate Damp.” Our homes are year-round incubators. Because it is rarely extremely dry or extremely hot, the mite population never “resets.” Instead, it compounds for decades inside our carpets, heavy curtains, and floorboards. We are living in highly efficient dust mite farms.

High Rates in Honduras

The high rates of asthma in Honduras can be largely due to the country’s unique "dust profile. In Honduras, the tropical climate provides a permanent, high-humidity "incubator" for house dust mites, which thrive in the porous materials of local housing.

However, this is significantly exacerbated by road dust and agricultural dust, particularly from large-scale harvesting and the burning of crop residues. In urban areas like Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, poorly paved roads and high traffic density mean that dust is constantly kicked into the air, carrying not just soil but concentrated biological allergens and pollutants.

This creates a "dual-trigger" environment where the lungs are chronically primed by indoor mites and then acutely challenged by heavy outdoor dust, leading to some of the highest sensitization rates in the Western Hemisphere.

Different Types of Asthma

Many people believe exercise, cold air, or pollen 'causes' their asthma. Everyone is different. But my experience suggests that for me these were just the 'last straw.' If your lungs are already chronically inflamed by an invisible, year-round trigger like dust mites, then exercise or pollen simply pushes you over the edge. When I removed the dust mites, the other 'causes' suddenly stopped being a problem.

Hygiene Between the West and Asia

From my own experiences living in Western houses and Asians suggests there are also other reasons why UK has higher rates of Asthma than in Asia and that is cleanliness. In the UK 12% of people have asthma compared to 6% in Japan.

The average person sheds 1.5 grams of skin per day, with the majority of that being in the bed. This is what the dust mites feed on.

Only 28% of British people wash their bedding weekly, despite recommendations to do so, with the largest group (36%) cleaning them once a fortnight, and the rest changing bedding less frequently such as once a month. Evidence and conversations online suggest that in Japan, China bedding is washed or changed once a week and in warmer climates such as Malaysia or Singapore once every 3-5 days is common.

Showering habits also differ. There is also evidence that in China and Japan people shower at least once a day (or more frequently when it is hotter) but usually have a shower in the evening before bed. The majority in the UK showers 2 days or less frequently with only 49% every day. Showering in the evening and more frequently would reduce excess skin and make the bed cleaner and reduce dust mites.

Humidity also has a big difference. As they can’t drink they will absorb humidity from the air. Carpets, sofas, and curtains are also an important factor.

One interesting thing to note is that dust mite types differ. With the specific one I was allergic to not being prevalent in China.

Conclusion

I’m incredibly grateful that I’ve found the root cause, and I encourage everyone who has asthma but has not yet had an allergy test to get tested with a IgE allergy test.

My research and experience suggest that the majority of cases are driven by invisible triggers like dust mites. Identifying the trigger could be a first step.

The Shift from Passive to Proactive

For decades, the model of healthcare has been: get sick, see a doctor, get a prescription. My experience suggests the future of health looks different. It involves becoming the “owner” of your own wellbeing.

With the rise of affordable private testing (like the IgE test I took in Malaysia) and the accessibility of research, we are moving away from “one-size-fits-all”.

Taking control means learning, taking healthcare into your own hands: Self-Testing: Not waiting for a referral if you can access data yourself. Understanding that systems are often designed for “scale and stability” and are better at management rather than “individual optimization,” and that it is up to the individual to bridge that gap.

More Stats

• Roughly 80% of adults and 90% of children with asthma have allergic triggers.

• Less than 1/3 of asthma sufferers have ever been tested.

• More stats about Asthma

The debate usually misses the point because it treats consciousness as binary - like a light switch - either on or off. But when you look at your own experience, you realize consciousness is a spectrum.

It isn’t something you have; it’s something you expand.

We are all moving along this spectrum, and the “higher” we go, the more the world transforms from something happening to us into something created by us.

One of the levels of consciousness is the shift from victim to creator. There are then other shifts that - life happens through me; I am in "flow" with the universe, and then the ultimate one which is there is no separation; I am life, the world, and everyone and they are also me.

• The Weather Happens To You

• You Create the weather

• You Are the Weather

The act of realising that you are the creator of your life and it is coming from you not at you is the most defining moment in consciousness in this step. Once you realize you are the architect, the question is no longer “What will happen?” but “What will I design?”, and then “What am I?”

How To Design Your Life

Moving up the spectrum requires three foundational pillars to stabilize your “Creator” status:

1. Meditation: To create the space between stimulus and response. This is where your power to choose lives.

2. Solitude: You need to escape the influence from those around you at lower frequencies. To design a life that is truly yours, you must first silence the echoes of everyone else’s expectations. Solitude isn't about being alone; it is about reclaiming the sovereignty of your own mind so that your designs are authentic, not adopted.

3. Elimination - Saying no to what you have so you can say yes to what is next is one of the defining parts.
   
   “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” — Warren Buffett
   

4. Non-Negotiable Habits: These are the “rules of the game” you set for yourself so you don’t have to rely on fleeting motivation.
   

   
   Output = (Daily Habit)365 * Internationality
   

5. Writing your life into existence - by journaling and content creatio value is in the transformation of the author, not just the production of the text. This puts a new meaning to the creator economy as not just an economic shift but a consciousness shift.

6. Get inspired and around those that raise you

“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.” — Rumi

As AI gets better at tasks, the most valuable human skill becomes Intentionality. A machine can follow a prompt, but only a conscious being can decide what is worth building in the first place.

AI is a tool for the ‘What’; you are the master of the ‘Why.’

Moving from victim to creator isn’t just a spiritual idea - it is the practical act of taking command of your own programming.

So the question how to design your dream life?

Shifts from a subtle -
“how to get” to
”how to discover or explore your dream life” to
”how to discover and understand yourself”

What we get out of life is very much a result of the kind of questions we ask.

And this is what I think we are missing with AI when we question at what stage AI will become conscious - rather than the real question which is - how can we use AI to understand ourselves and expand our own consciousness - how conscious can we become?

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Read More

• James Clear (Habits & Compounding) - 3-2-1 Thursday

• The Marginalian by Maria Popova (Viktor Frankl & Philosophy) - Beautifully written essays on Viktor Frankl, solitude, and the “What am I?” stage of consciousness.

• Susan Cain (Solitude & Depth) - The Quiet Life with Susan Cain - Tools for protecting your “Quiet” time and using solitude as a superpower for your “Creator” phase.

• Sloww by Kyle Kowalski - Deep-dives on regarding the “4 Stages of Consciousness” and various spectrums of awareness.

In reality, economics is a tool of political intent rather than objective discovery. Unlike a lab experiment in chemistry, economic assumptions are notoriously difficult to test because you cannot run a “control” version of a national society.

At its root, the field was never meant to be a cold spreadsheet.

When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, it was a work of moral philosophy. It was about designing a system that aligned with human nature to create a specific outcome: national productive capacity.

Economics as a content-free science is a delusion. It is a branch of wisdom that must start with the human person, not the dollar.” - E.F. Schumacher

The global adoption of GDP as the singular metric of success is an example of the stifled institutional innovation.

Politicians choose the school of thought that best justifies their policy goals, and they also defer their economic thought to economists, which creates a loop where nobody knows what they are doing.

Politicians do not find the “truth” in economics; they choose the school of thought that best justifies their policy goals.

Academia is No Longer the Frontier

Academia has become trapped by a structural need for consensus-seeking.

The Triangulation Trap: Academic success relies on triangulating one’s work with current leading thinkers to gain approval. This creates a “safe” but stagnant middle ground that prizes peer-reviewed agreement over radical experimentation.

The quest for consensus is the enemy of the quest for truth. Progress requires the freedom to be wrong in isolation before being right in public.” - David Deutsch

In academia we have silo’d disciplines into their own departments. This is positive for depth, but it is not the nature of knowledge. All disciplines are parts of the same tree of knowledge, they compete and overlap and influence each other.

Economists are also rarely questioning the underlying assumptions and the need for renew, testing and how it is changing.

Another problem is that if anyone is smart enough to pick up a bug or problem in economics they are more likely to go into the market to make huge wealth. Adam Smith was paid as an academic which is far less than the potential of able financiers like Stephe Schwarzman.

The true frontier of economic thought has moved online.

In the digital sphere, thinkers are free to write in “productive isolation” and in new philosophies, communities and technologies, - unburdened by the need for institutional consensus.

Experiments and Free Zones

Economics should be viewed as an interdisciplinary design project that is arguable just as schools of philosophy. It is a beautiful blend of philosophy, finance, psychology and biology and engineering used to build the society we actually want.

We need Free Zones and autonomous “experimental labs” where different economic models can be tested in parallel, mirroring the learnings of China, or micro-states or network states.

Only by running multiple, competing experiments can we find an “operating system” that values human capital on a balance sheet rather than just tracking its liquidation on an income statement.

What is Economics?

Economics is not the weather that we measure and the data, it’s about the ideas, the architecture and framework and that we build around the society we desire.

It starts with the question - what kind of society and economy do we want to build?

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Further Reading

Schumacher - Small Is Beautiful on Bookshop.org
Schumacher Center for a New Economics
David Deutsch

Economics by Aristotle. - Ancient Greece: For thinkers like Aristotle and Xenophon, economics was never about growth. It was about the virtue of the citizens. Aristotle famously distinguished between oikonomia (natural wealth for living well) and chrematistics (the unnatural pursuit of money for its own sake).

Aristotle lists 4 Types of Economy - All the economies have one principle in common. No matter what is done, expenditures cannot exceed income. This is given as an important issue, fundamental to the notion of ‘economy.’

This considered fundamental to the notion of “economy” because it mirrors the First Law of Thermodynamics: you cannot create something from nothing. In a closed system, an economy that consumes more than it produces is essentially in a state of decay, liquidating its assets to maintain a facade of growth.

Erick Kim - About Aristotle and Economics

It’s like putting a Ferrari engine on a bicycle.

You need to upgrade the vehicle so you can actually navigate on the road to match the capabilities of the engine.

That becomes the primary bottleneck.

The value we build becomes the coordination, direction, and friction.

Education and up-skilling is so much more essential in the age of AI, because without it. It’s no longer about learning knowledge, thats already abundant, but the application of that knowledge. That’s why learning needs to be combined with doing.

Direction also matters much more - doing what only you can do and nobody else can do - building a monopoly of one.

It’s necessary for everyone who competes to have an understanding of the market forces, competitors, and have a wider field of view, because now everyone has.

Time, mindset and energy management are also essential as they are for athletes.

Soft and personal skills matter more because that is the interface that AI can’t yet reach, and we have evolved to specialise in.

The opportunity for most people in the friction and challenges. The application of this new technology to solve problems and integrate it into our systems.

Upgrade.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) skyrockets, stock markets boom.

Yet, birth rates plummet, families struggle with unaffordable housing, the deficit keeps rising uncontrollably each year.

This is our economic contradiction.

Why is everything getting better, technology booming, but these indicators demonstrate otherwise? Shouldn’t our deficit be falling and birth rates growing?

At the heart of it is a bug in our economics - it’s suicidal economics - a system that grows by liquidating long-term human flourishing.

The importance of incentives

I’ll start and finish with the importance of incentives as Charlie Munger mentioned, and then introduce the solution by coming back to Warren Buffet.

Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome. Charlie Munger

In this article I’m going to explain the history of various forms of economic incentives over time and GDP and how it came about.

The Spanish Empire Plundering Gold

In 1790 Spain was the largest power in the world, it benefited from accumulating huge amounts of gold and silver.

But the problem is, when the resources stopped, there was nothing to fall back on, it failed to develop local industry - it didn’t need to. It was overtaken by the next power with a better philosophy.

The British Empire Industrialised

The British saw it differently - national wealth comes from a nation's productive capacity - not by the amount of resources it could accumulate but by how much it could create. The wealth of nations was written in 1776. Britain became the workshop of the world

The First Industrialist's Dilemma - Britain failed to pivot away from declining heavy, export-oriented industries (coal, shipbuilding, iron, textiles) and US, Germany had natural advantages in industry and resources and overtook and didn’t need to maintain global expensive sea routes. The railroad was more efficient than the sea empire. Britain was burdened by a large empire and failed to move toward emerging consumer-oriented sectors, resulting in mass industrial over-capacity, obsolete techniques, and high unemployment

The US Consumer Economy

In 1934, in the aftermath of the great depression, the US adopted a new philosophy - GDP. An economy was measured by the volume of activity and transactions in the economy. Consumerism was born, and then, the welfare state.

Every 100 or so years we have a fundamental shift in how things work and now we are coming to an end to the consumer period and need a new economic model. The industrial era economics that are focused on the consumer economy no longer work.

We now have the internet and that means a completely different system. In 2026, this philosophy is now gutting out local industry, and fail to differentiate between good and bad transactions.

The Problem with GDP

“GDP measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” - Robert F. Kennedy

GDP was designed to measure how fast the economy is moving and how many transactions are happening. It is exactly like the speedometer on a car. It doesn’t measure how strong the economy is and how much it is actually growing, just how fast it is currently moving.

This is a great measure when the economy is operating at 10 - 70mph, but when it reaches the outer limits, it becomes damaging to the engine. It incentivises taking on more debt, to go faster and to keep going at any speed. It’s a good measure in principle, but when it’s the overriding pricniple, it becomes damaging.

In order to upgrade the economy, we need to look at and actually upgrade the car engine.

The Rear-View Mirror Trap

Beyond the speed analogy, the fatal flaw of GDP is that it is fundamentally backward-looking. It measures the “smoke” of yesterday’s fire but tells you nothing about the fuel left for tomorrow.

Because GDP only registers a “success” when money changes hands now, it creates a perverse incentive to liquidate the future to pay for the present. We sell off our natural resources, we over-leverage our children with debt, and we burn through the “social capital” of the family unit - all to keep the current quarter’s numbers high. It is the economic equivalent of a farmer eating his seed corn to feel full today, then wondering why he is starving when the next season arrives.

This isn't just a radical critique; it’s a realization reaching the highest levels of global thought. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate, has long argued that GDP is a poor measure of well-being because it ignores inequality and sustainability. Similarly, the World Economic Forum and the OECD have begun developing "Beyond GDP" frameworks, acknowledging that measuring "transactions" while ignoring the depletion of natural and human capital is like a pilot flying a plane by looking only at the fuel flow and ignoring the altimeter.

GDP Eats the Family

Economies focused on maximizing GDP naturally also seek to move activity from the informal sector (home, community, unpaid care) into the formal sector (taxable transactions).

In a traditional family structure, “care” is a non-monetized consumer surplus. When a mother cares for a child, or a family cooks a meal together, no GDP is recorded. However, when the State provides childcare or a corporation delivers a meal via an app, GDP rises.

This creates a systemic incentive for the State to “eat into” the family’s role, replacing organic bonds with institutional or transactional ones.

Social psychologist refers to this shift as the ‘Great Rewiring.’ By moving childhood and community from the real-world ‘informal sector’ onto algorithmically optimized digital platforms, we have traded the mental health of an entire generation for a temporary boost in engagement metrics.

GDP acts as a master incentive on the economy. Directly - as state spending is 40% of the economy, but also through the control of policy in the parts - immigration, limiting housing, and education.

As the economy seeks new frontiers for growth, it has begun to “financialize” human relationships. The “consumer surplus” of dating and companionship is being harvested by platforms designed to maximize engagement and profit.

• Tinder and the Dating Market: What was once a community-based social process is now an algorithmically driven market. This has led to a “winner-take-all” dynamic that leaves many men feeling economically and socially devalued.

• OnlyFans and the Commodity of Attention: The monetization of intimacy (OnlyFans) and the gamification of attention (smartphones/social media) turn human connection into a series of micro-transactions.

The end goal of an economy seeking total GDP growth is a society of perfectly atomized individuals who depend entirely on the Market and the State for every need, from food to emotional validation.

The Abundance of the Digital Economy

As economist Diane Coyle, author of GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History, argues: “GDP was designed for a world of mass-produced physical goods. It is fundamentally ill-equipped to measure a digital economy where the most valuable assets—data, software, and human connection - often have a market price of zero but a societal value that is infinite.”

The conflict we have now is that the consumer economy measures transactions in terms of price, but the value is decreasingly connected to the price. Digital economics result in everything becoming cheaper over time.

This creates the very peverse incentive of governments who are seeking GDP growth to:

• Increase debt

• Create artificial scarcity to maintain the price of certain goods, and keep the economy growing.

So now I’m going to explore two examples that are dangerous and the reasons behind them.

Governments Restrict Housing to Keep the Economy Strong

There is a conflict between young people getting on the housing ladder and the economy.

Immigration is Better for the Economy

The Migration Observatory and Office of Budget Responsibility have written about how immigration is better for the economy because the country doesn’t need to cover the costs of raising the person from a baby. It boosts the GDP

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-impact-of-migration-on-uk-population-growth/

This demonstrates the perverse incentive that exists to limit the number of new people who are being born and import people from other countries, effectively removing the cost.

Demographic researcher , director of Birthgap, has identified that this ‘unplanned childlessness’ is a byproduct of economic shocks that force young people to delay family-building until the biological window begins to close - a cost that GDP never accounts for.

Large scale immigration also creates a self-reinforcing cycle where the competition on housing also increases costs to raise a family and limits the amount of new children that can grow. This forces a downward pressure on populations.

Companies Also Have an Incentives to Limit Population

Larry Fink CEO of Blackrock, one of the most influential figures in global finance, that owns leading stakes in many of the world’s biggest companies highlights how lower birth rates is an advantage for an economy as it requires them to develop automation and industry.

This shows how is there is an aligned incentive of companies, shareholders, and nations to restrict the population and bring in robots an AI. The more that gap, the more that is needed.

It’s essential to be mindful of that interest and how that is also driven by companies incentives to fill the gap.

The Importance of Humans

A declining birth rates is not an inevitable thing but the result of specific policies and the result of the master incentives. At no point in our GDP do we consider humans as valuable, and so we are liquidating humans.

The Economy of Completely AI

Taken to the extreme - if we have an economy that is made fully of robots and AI, it can become completely about resource extraction, energy and then selling to humans or other AI.

If robots do all the work, humans have no wages. If humans have no wages, they cannot buy what the robots produce. If no one buys what is produced, the "economy" (as measured by transactions) collapses

The Solution - the Balance Sheet

We need a reboot of what a human is for in the economy. And this also comes to the heart of what economics is about - from allocating finite resources in the face of infinite consumer needs towards creating abundance. Humans are not a consumer, but the heart of the new economy. Human capital is the core pillar of the economy.

On an Income Statement (GDP), a child is a 20-year liability. On a Balance Sheet, a child is a 60-year appreciating asset. When we change the math, we change the incentive to support families, education and healthcare.

As our economy is maturing, it’s essential to move away from thinking of the economy as a speedometer and moving towards measuring the economy as a balance sheet.

Warren Buffet: “I spend more time looking at balance sheets than I do income statements”.

Lowering house prices and building more houses would make the GDP fall but would grow birth rates and grow the balance sheet.

So, what does a National Balance Sheet actually look like? Unlike GDP, which only tracks ‘Activity,’ a Balance Sheet tracks Net Worth.

• Assets: We would list our ‘Human Capital’ (birth rates and cognitive health), our ‘Resource Equity’ (energy independence), and our ‘ Infrastructure’ (housing affordability and family stability).

• Liabilities: We track not just fiscal debt (and actually measure and incentivise managing it - because GDP completely omits it), but ‘Social Depreciation’—the rising costs of loneliness, mental health crises, and the hollowing out of our local communities.

Conclusion

If we follow Charlie Munger’s logic, our current 'Suicidal Economics' are simply the result of a bad incentive: the obsession with the GDP speedometer. To fix the outcome, we must change the incentive. By shifting our gaze from the 'Income Statement' of today to the 'Balance Sheet' of tomorrow, as Warren Buffett does, we stop liquidating our future to pay for our present. We stop being a consumer-driven engine and start being a human-driven legacy.

In the end, a civilization that optimizes for a speedometer while the gas tank is empty isn't 'growing'- it's just coasting toward a cliff in high gear

Further Reading

This thesis builds upon the work of several thinkers who are already sounding the alarm on our current economic “operating system.” For those looking to dive deeper into the “Beyond GDP” movement and the future of human capital, I highly recommend:

• on why productivity and birth rates are the true engines of a nation.

• on the “disconnect” between economic data and human reality

• on the “Financialization of Culture” (which aligns with “GDP Eats the Family” section).

• – On how technology is "liquidating" the mental health of the youth

• – On the importance of family units as the core of society.

• – On why “psychological value” matters more than “market price.”

• (Pronatalist.org) – Leading voices on the birth rate crisis

• Stephen J. Shaw (Director of Birthgap) – Documentary filmmaker on demographic collapse

• Diane Coyle - Why the economy feels broken even when its growing Podcast, and Blog.

‘Any damn fool can overtake going downhill.’ My grandfather said as a car revved past us on a country road.

Today, this describes our economy.

We have been taught that GDP growth is the ultimate scoreboard of a successful economy.

GDP is like a speedometer on a car. It is a measure of how many transactions are happening, but it doesn’t care about the direction or sustainability of the engine.

Speed is what matters.

However, if our economic transactions are happening faster, but we are not upgrading our economic engine - infrastructure, and human capital, and birth rates are falling, debt is rising, and we are burning all our fuel, then our economy isn’t getting stronger, it’s headed toward a cliff.

The Spanish Trap: 1790 vs. 2026

In the late 1700s, Spain was the world’s undisputed superpower. They had accumulated more “resources” (gold and silver) than any nation in history. They were rich beyond imagination.

But they failed to develop local industry. What’s the point? They didn’t need to; they could just buy whatever they wanted.

When the silver stopped flowing, Spain collapsed. They were overtaken by the United Kingdom - a nation with a better philosophy.

In 1776 Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. The British realized that wealth doesn’t come from accumulation, it comes from Productive Capacity. They became the “workshop of the world” because they invested in the ability of their people to produce.

The GDP Delusion

In 1934, following the great depression, the U.S. adopted a new metric: GDP. It was designed to measure activity to get the economy flowing again. It was never meant to be the target, yet over time, it has become our chief economic goal, and a “master incentive” that drives our economy.

The problem? GDP is a misguided metric. It doesn’t differentiate between Value Creation and Economic Liquidation. Our obsession with GDP distorts our economy.

• If you have a car crash, GDP goes up.

• If you have an oil spill, GDP goes up.

• If the cost of housing, healthcare, and education doubles, GDP goes up.

By chasing GDP, we have incentivized Extractive Economics. The flow of money is more important than our stock. And we don’t even consider the value of humans in our economic model. We are liquidating our most important asset - the Human Being - (the engine) to keep the “transactional volume” high on a spreadsheet. When human beings should be the center and most important part of an economy.

The “Downhill” Economy

When a home doubles in price without a single brick being added, GDP rises, but the nation gets poorer. We have mistaken the rising cost - speed for the creation of wealth.

Look at the state of the world in 2026:

• Birth rates are in a global freefall.

• Debt is at record highs.

• Productivity is stagnant.

And yet, the “experts” point to GDP growth and tell us we’re doing fine.

This is the definition of “overtaking going downhill.” We have financialized the basic infrastructure of life - housing and health - turning them into “extractive assets” that eat away at the individual’s surplus.

The Solution: Surplus Economics

An economy is not better because of the level of transactions; it is better because of the capacity and ability of its people.

We need a new philosophy:

The Surplus.

Real wealth is not the volume of money moving through a system. Real wealth is the capacity of the people

Individual Surplus - what a person has left over in terms of time, health, and capital after their foundation is secured, and their ability to create to live, and reproduce.

An economy is not stronger because it is going faster. It is stronger because it has a better engine.

Sometimes you need to take a pitstop to slow down and rebuild the engine, and to build a better economy we need to see GDP as an indicator not a goal.

By continually pushing an economy to its limit, by measuring in the wrong way, we are overtaking going downhill.

It’s time to stop looking at the speedometer, and start building a better engine.

It’s not getting stronger, it’s not getting bigger. It’s liquidating it’s most important asset - humans.

GDP was introduced in 1934 and was never intended to be a target, but one of many measurements on the health of the economy. It is increasingly being questioned as it is having a perverse effect that distorts the economy.

As GDP is the measure of activity in the economy, it doesn’t differentiate between good activity and bad activity. For example an oil spill or a car crash will boost economic growth, as will raising costs of living. It actually incentivises extractive economics rather than value creation because it doesn’t differentiate between the two, and extractive economics is much easier and immediate. It incentivises liquidating the stock - including the human capital and infrastructure, and incentivising debt. All things that increase economic activity in the short term, but damage economic capacity, and growth in the long run.

It is the same as going to a doctor and saying: “I’m healthy, I ran 30km this week” but the doctor doesn’t look at heart rate variability, diet or general health, and just incentivises running more next week.

GDP acts as a master incentive on the economy. It guides government policy, which makes up almost 40% of the economy in most developed countries, and it incentivises policies from immigration to education and housing and infrastructure.

One of the ways to grow GDP is to eat away the consumer surplus. Consumer surplus is the difference between what you are willing to pay for something, and the price you do pay. By increasing prices on certain goods that are inelastic - housing, energy, education, healthcare it grows GDP.

And this is exactly what has been happening.

Another way we can increase GDP is by bringing more of our human exchanges into the transactive economy. If the state or market takes on more of these transactions - such as with onlyfans, tinder, and the welfare state, the GDP grows - is this a benefit for society?

The problem is that if the GDP is rising while our consumer surplus is falling, there is less left for the productive part of our economy. A healthy economy is one where the Surplus is maximized, not the Transaction Volume.

What should replace GDP? A host of KPI should be used, including possibly anonymised health, and birth rates can also be considered as a measure of consumer surplus and forward optimism. Also a balance sheet perspective which considers human capital, and infrastructure. Warren Buffet emphasizes analyzing balance sheets for a company’s true financial health, looking for low or no debt, high cash reserves, consistently growing retained earnings, and minimal preferred stock, as they are harder to manipulate than income statements and reveal a company’s long-term stability and competitive advantage (moat). The same should be the case for countries.

Moving to a balance sheet perspective would see us recognising and investing more in health, childcare, and put an economic value on life, where it is currently viewed as a cost.

What is Infrastructure?

Another point is that there are rising costs in housing, education and healthcare. But why is that?

Infrastructure is defined as:

the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g. buildings, roads, power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

Housing is artificially limited and this is to support GDP growth. They have become financialised and more of an investment asset than a place to live.

The problem is that as these costs rise, and GDP rises, they eat away at the consumer surplus, leaving less available for the productive economy.

Housing, education and healthcare are often framed as private benefits, but they actually fall under the above definition of infrastructure.

The debate is usually more about how should pay for it? The state or the market? Rather than recognising their value beyond price.

In order to grow our economy in the long run we need to move beyond GDP and recognise the value of infrastructure

The story of Alexander was an incredible and pivotal moment in history that led to the rise and dominance of Greece, and then the subsequent Roman Empire, and western civilisation, and it contains an abundance of lessons and wisdom that can be useful today.

Here are the biggest lessons I learnt

• Education

• Leadership

• Vision & Focus

The Persian empire before, and Alexander’s route of invasion.

While it is an incredible story of bravery, focus, vision, heroism and leadership, on the other hand, while there were many hairy moments, something that surprised me was the seeming ease with which he conquered such the territory. It seems that once Alexander’s dominance was established there was an inevitability in fall of the whole territory. The structure, and systems of the Persian empire, could then be taken over by another power.

But why did he have such an advantage?

• On the one hand he had an obvious and clear military advantage. This is something that can be owed more to his father Philip who innovated and built the Macedonian war machine after learning from the best of the greek armies of Thebes and Athens.

  • Established a full-time professional army that could be more specialised than the other part-time states.

  • Developed the Phalanx formation, with interlocking shields and long sarissas

• • Developed the Wedge Shaped Cavalry formation which focused on the centre to puncture enemy lines.

• Emphasised mobility by having troops carry their own supplies, reducing the need for animals and enabling year round campaigns.

One of the most decisive factors for Alexander’s superiority was his incredible education which enabled him to out-think anyone in the world. This is also thanks to his father. From a young age he had personal tutoring by one of the greatest thinkers of the world - Aristotle, who was also Macedonian. Alexander received 1 on 1 tutoring in Philosophy, ethics, medicine, logic, politics, rhetoric, persuasion, scientific inquiry frameworks, history, battles, and carried a copy of Homer’s Illiad annoted by Aristotle with him, with the core lessons that the truly great man seeks immortality through deeds. He learnt civilisational design.

This education gave him the mental superiority that was outmatched by anyone in the world, and ability to out think his opponents, lead an army, overcome obstacles and then understand systems and civilisation to build cities and manage an empire.

‘Our enemies are Medes and Persians, men who for centuries have lived soft and luxurious lives; we of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war. Above all, we are free men, and they are slaves. There are Greek troops, to be sure, in Persian service but how different is their cause from ours! They will be fighting for pay and not much of it at that; we, on the contrary, shall fight for Greece, and our hearts will be in it.’

It also fully taught him to focus on his higher goal and being free from distractions that many of the great kings.

Alexander also had an enormous self belief and conviction in himself. This is thanks his education and upbringing, constantly being inspired and prepared to lead an empire. That led to his ability to see a clear vision and self belief was necessary for him to carry out great deeds like going first over a fortress, founding cities in his name, and share propaganda about himself.

His ability to lead from the front, when necessary, in one battle outflanking the Persian army to go straight for the Persian king with his small elite force, showed his conviction to his army and helped him win the mental battle against the Persian leader who looked in his eyes, and after seeing the ferocity in his eyes, fled the battlefield. It was there that the Persian empire was lost.

The story of Alexander is one that helps any person become more ambitious. If he was able to do all this, it helps put your life into perspective.

To me the story of Alexander is more about the importance and value in education. I have often wondered - if I could go to teach my 12 or 13 year old me, all the wisdom and lessons that I know now that I have learnt from trial and error, how effective that could be, and what are some of the things I be able to accomplish in my twenties. I say this not because of regret, but to consider how we can improve our education system and how valuable it can be. Not to create conquerors but leaders. One of the core challenges of our civilisation is that knowledge, experience is lost and has to be relearnt every generation. Creating great men and leaders such as Alexander is something that happens rarely and often more by the chance of some foresight and planning within a family.

While education is so valuable, something that can help a nation conquer another, lead industries, and solve any problem, teaching is something that is often undervalued by our current system, being some of the lowest paid professions. Part of the reason it is undervalued is that our economic system has no way of monetising it. Our economic system and GDP measures the capture of value, it has no way of measuring future value or recognising the lost potential. The most powerful force in civilisation - compounding human capability - remains undervalued and unmeasured. While we seek to maximise profit, encourage debt-fueled consumption. We have to find a way to set the vision, measure differently, or override our current incentives so the value of education is recognised on a wider scale.

What would such an education system look like? And can it be done at scale? The key point is that the content and knowledge is abundantly available now that we have the internet. We are not limited by our ability to hire scribes to write books. We have more tools than Alexander ever dreamed of: internet, AI, instant access to global knowledge.

Such an education system would have a powerful modern core curriculum combining the essential lessons give self-belief and conviction and have effective application and personalisation of this knowledge to each person. This is all now possible now that that we have AI, digital systems and the internet so we are not limited by our ability to be in a certain location to access excellent tutors. We are now in an age where there are tools, content and systems are available.

The story of Alexander, is one where one man’s foresight to provide elite education led to the rise of Greece and the birth of western civilisation. Such a lesson should not be down to chance. How we choose to educate could make the difference between a falling power, loss of wealth, civilisational decay into dark ages, or a rising one, if every child could have an Alexander level education, where knowledge compounds every generation. A civilisational unlock providing enormous advantage for a nation or bring in a new renaissance and golden age.

These are concepts that were central to their argument.

Their struggle to clearly define these words revealed a common, crippling intellectual flaw: the lazy reliance on undefined language.

This intellectual sloppiness isn’t just a communication barrier; it’s a fundamental barrier to clear thinking, especially in complex fields like economics.

In this article, I will not define ‘money’ or ‘economy’ yet; instead, I’ll argue why clear definitions are the essential first principle for clear thought and introduce the Four Categories of Words you must master to become an elite thinker.

A quick search online, and often the words we find in online dictionaries are very simplistic, and even include the words themselves.

To elevate economic thought it’s essential to take some time to really define words.

This is first principles thinking.

It’s like reconstructing or organising your reality.

When you go deep on this, it’s like understanding mathematics and you’ll have a deeper understanding of the nature of reality. It gives you an incredible sense of peace, and clarity.

Here are the four types of words and my four rules.

1) Evaluator words - Cut these out entirely

“Bad, good, big, small, difficulty, better, worse, expensive”.
Any word that you can say: “Compared to what?”
”Modern, normal, and well-respected” are also evaluator words.
They are are relative to something that is usually not stated.
If they are being used, then it’s essential to include what they are compared to.
Realise that when they are used without referring to what they are being compared to, they often actually say more about the communicator than the object.
Avoiding these forces clarity.

2) Primitive Words - Define these clearly

“Time, pain, resource, goal”
These can have vague meanings.
These are the building blocks of reality.
Defining them gives you clarity.
All of these words need to have clear boundaries.
What is and what is not this word.

3) Compound / Composite words - Understand These

“Hardship, disaster, justice, hurrying, working, beautiful”
These are the majority of our words, and understanding these is more about putting together the building blocks of our reality and their relations with each other.
It’s almost like studying Physics.
For “hardship” now you’ve got to define “pain”, and how hardships relates to this.
You have a deeper understanding of what this actually means.
Without understanding primitive words such as pain or evaluator words, we can’t fully understand these words.

4) Amorphous words - fill these with what they mean to you

“Success, happy, love”. Realise that these are empty containers. If you don’t fill them with your own specific definitions (using primitive words), society will fill them for you - usually with things you don’t really want. These are vague words that mean different things to different people, that can lead to lazy and unclear thinking - if we don’t define them our communication and language deteriorates.

Defining words becomes even more important as we increasingly use AI for analysis. If we don’t define words, then our terms resort to the average, a mixture of different definitions, and our thinking becomes sloppy, rather resorting to emotional dialogue.

Here are some words I’ve defined recently that are different to online, official definitions, and how most people define it.

And hopefully this article will have given the benefits of clearly defining words and confidence to define them for yourself and challenge others.

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Some of My Definitions

Pain - The subjective interpretation of a biological signal indicating that a threshold has been crossed, limit has been reached, or boundary has been breached.

Distraction - any stimulus or activity that takes you further away from your goals.

Focus - the act of putting something into your field of view at the exclusion of everything else.

Relationship - the consistent and mutually agreed upon exchange of value between two people or entities by clearly defined behavioural standards and boundaries.

Leader - a person who sets a mutually advantageous vision and persuades and aligns the interests of others to achieve that vision, continually, until it is realised.

Trust - the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, and integrity of a person, entity, or object and the willingness to be vulnerable to the actions of another party because you expect that they will perform a particular action important to you, without the need to monitor or control them.

Purpose - The fundamental reason for which something is done or created, or for which something exists.

Clarity - The quality of being coherent, intelligible, and free from ambiguity.

Simplicity - the state where the unessential has been removed so that an entity can better perform its purpose.

Elegant - simple in an attractive, refined or sophisticated way.

Refined - removing the non-essential parts, or carrying out some specific process, to make it more elegant.

Authentic- The state of alignment where internal beliefs, external words, and visible actions are identical.

Vulnerability - The intentional lowering of defenses (armour) at risk of pain or loss to increase the chance of some benefit (often connection).

Engagement - The connection between two entities where attention and energy are successfully transferred.

Boredom - The painful psychological state of low arousal and lack of external stimulation, due to excess potential, or lack of meaning, which forces the brain to seek new goals or activity.

It’s attention.

Attention is the only scarce resource in the intelligence age.

Which makes the mastery of attention your primary goal.

But what is attention?

In order to understand it and to maximise it, we have to be able to define it.

I would define attention as:

The selection, direction and application of mental energy, towards a specific direction

We can’t understand attention without understanding focus.

Focus has two similar, related definitions

1. the act of putting something into your field of view at the exclusion of everything else

2. Focus is the central point of interest, activity, or concern around which other elements revolve

Attention is the resource; Focus is the tool.

Attention is the light, focus is the lens.

In order to improve attention, like we would improve our physical bodies, we have to break it down into the different parts. Strength, agility, stamina, etc., and then work on improving each part.

There are multiple aspects of attention

• Executive (Meta) attention - which manages other types

• Selective - the ability to ignore distractions

• Intensity - the power of attention

• Depth - how far attention can go - eg., something that is far away

• Breadth - how many things can be held in attention at once

• Sustained - the ability to sustain it over time

• Shift - the ability to shift attention between topics

• Divide - the ability to put attention on multiple things

In order to improve our attention, the first step is to understand it deeply.

When we define it, we can see that a big part of what makes our attention better is limiting what we apply it to.

Narrowing the lens, allows our attention to have more power.

This is counterintuitive to us, in a world seeking continual growth, and more.

We think more light = more power, but more light dispersed, is less powerful than less light concentrated into a laser.

The second step is to consciously make an effort to improve it.

On a macro level, the problem is that our economic system is designed for a previous age.

To succeed in the future, we must stop letting the economy farm us, and start guarding our attention as the precious asset it is.

With our drive towards GDP growth, attention, our most valuable resource, is not measured, it is a resource to be farmed to maximise and monetise.

Any future economic system should at least recognise the value of attention.