Introduction

The world is a confusing place

You have a wide choice of websites, podcasts, magazines, books, TV news shows and more that will tell you how messed up the world is. I don’t really want to be part of that cacophony, but it’s worth noting here because this book is a response to the chaos that invades our daily lives: the constant bombardment of bad news and scary stories.

• The world is a confusing and sometimes scary place these days.
  • Political polarization
  • Fake news
  • Terrorism
  • Climate change

What if you could know everything?

Imagine for a moment that you were somehow able to learn everything that humans have ever learned about the Universe: every experience, every insight from everyone who has ever lived.

How would you feel?

I’m guessing that you’d feel confident since all the knowledge of the World would be at your fingertips. You could call upon that knowledge to solve any problem, deal with any situation, and handle any challenge.

You’d feel capable because you’d be able to build anything, fix anything, do any job, run any business or government, fight any battle, and negotiate any peace. You’d be able to drive or fly any vehicle, treat any illness or injury, climb any mountain…

You’d also be self-aware. You’d know who you are and where you came from. You’d know your flaws and your strengths.

You’d be resilient. You’d learn quickly from mistakes, and integrate new information quickly and easily.

You’d understand how things work, see connections that others can’t, and have incredible insights.

And since you wouldn’t be omniscient and would only know what humans have discovered, you’d realize how much you still don’t know. Your curiosity would be intensified. You’d have a profound sense of mystery: of the unknown and unknowable aspects of the Universe.

Unfortunately, the human mind can’t learn everything humanity knows about the physical Universe. Our brains are too limited. We don’t have the time. We probably aren’t even capable of comprehending it as a whole; we can just see pieces of it.

But we can get some of the same benefits.

Start with universe

The title of this book comes from a phrase that R. Buckminster Fuller used. For him, it was the best way to determine the scope of a problem: start with everything, Universe, and then get busy discarding things that are not related to the problem. He called that part of the process “eliminating irrelevancies”. We generally call it “thinking”.

What’s interesting is that there’s no way we can start by considering everything in the physical Universe. As we have already discussed, we’re not capable of learning everything that humanity knows about Universe. It’s impossible. So where does that leave us?

What I realized is that the only version of Universe that we have full access to is the one that we have inside us, what I call our “personal universe”.

Your personal universe

Your personal universe consists of all your experiences and all your knowledge. It is the model that you use to navigate the real world. It contains all the skills and knowledge you use to do your job. It’s how you see the world and your place in it.

Ideally, it would reflect the physical Universe as closely as possible, but as a product of our brain and mind, doesn’t have to. We are capable of creating a personal universe that has little to do with reality.

Or we can build a great personal universe that will allow us to be more confident, more capable, more self-aware, more resilient, and more curious. A strong personal universe can make us more effective in our lives, in our family’s lives, our community, our country and our world.

If you want to have a better life, start with your personal universe. If you want to change the world, start with your personal universe. If you want more happiness, understanding, capability, self-control, money, influence – anything really – start with your personal universe.

This book looks at some of the ways you can strengthen your personal universe and create a better future for you, your family and the world:

Chapter 1: Introducing your personal universe

You have a miniature version of humanity’s universe inside you. It consists of all your experiences and the things you have learned from your and others’ experiences. It’s arguably your most important asset, so it’s about time you got to know each other.

Chapter 2: Making it better than it was

Right now, you have a kind of default version of your personal universe; it’s what you created automatically without really thinking about it. We can improve it if we just pay it a little attention. The secret is to challenge it to make it more flexible, accurate, integrated and expansive.

Chapter 3: Outfitting your toolbox

Before you start looking at your personal universe, we need to make sure you have a few basic tools ready to go. You need to have some basic critical thinking skills and be willing to make changes to what you know. You also need some way to capture your thoughts in the moment so you can think more about them later.

Chapter 4: Letting go of knowing

We like to think of our knowledge as something dependable we can lean on in tough times. We talk about it being a solid foundation upon which we can build our lives. But holding on to knowledge too tightly locks us in place. It closes us to new information, and we end up defending what we think we know instead of continuing to grow.

Chapter 5: Mining for gold

Your personal universe contains some hard-won nuggets of wisdom built from your direct experiences. It also contains a bunch of stuff you half-learned and heard second-, third-, or even fourth-hand. Thankfully, it’s not difficult to identify what’s gold and what needs a little alchemy to transform it into gold.

Chapter 6: Connecting the dots

We like to categorize and subdivide our knowledge into neat silos. But the physical Universe doesn’t separate music from mathematics or engineering from art. It’s fully integrated, with everything being interconnected in complex and wonderful ways. Our personal universe can benefit from being the same way.

Chapter 7: Expanding your universe

Universe is so big and complex that our minds can’t actually comprehend it as a whole, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. The more we experience things ourselves and the more we can learn from other people’s experiences, the richer and more useful our personal universe will become.

Chapter 8: Moving forward

Challenging your personal universe is a life-long process and one that is well-worth the effort. There are a number of strategies you can implement that will keep the process moving forward, almost automatically. There are also some areas of knowledge that are worth special attention as they can help strengthen your personal universe more quickly and efficiently.