A simplified latticework for gaining an edge

 You can learn a single model fast. It lets you have superficial knowledge about a certain topic. This does not mean you understand it well. Knowing a model is just a tip of the iceberg in understanding it. You have to understand how it interacts and intertwines with others to get a complete picture of how to use the model. If you do not understand how these models work together, as a latticework, your understanding is next to nothing. In this text, I focus on how gaining an edge relates to other models. Some things are new and some things are old. In this text, I have bolded the all models when they appear the first time.

How gaining an edge interacts and intertwines with other models

Lets start with the easiest thing. What is an edge? It is one´s higher probability of success compared to the other. For example, the product of a person´s skills and motivation is better compared to someone else when they compete. Randomness can change the result in the short run, but it does not change the edge.

Gaining an edge in a highly competitive field of expertise requires the combination of four distinct components: talent, motivation, deliberate practice and the right environment. It requires understanding motivation and deliberate practice models themselves. Talent is a product of evolution. These three models: motivation, deliberate practice and evolution through genes interact with the right environment and the edge is the by-product. However, gaining the edge in a less competitive field of expertise does not require the interaction of all components. You only need three of them. Here, you can think in terms of intertwinements instead of interactions.

Let´s get back to a highly competitive field of expertise. You have to understand also other models when the deliberate practice is needed to gain an edge. Deliberate practice requires few things: motivation, willpower to continue practice after failures, and the availability of an efficient, accurate, and fast feedback loop between you and the authority figure who gives accurate advice of what you did wrong or how you could improve. Deliberate practice also requires the best timing. You can find it when you understand natural cycles of motivation, willpower, and learning. Learning also fastens when you can find the natural cycle of things you have to learn. For example, you can learn to play better tennis when you understand the natural cycles of hitting the ball.

The last component, the right environment is maybe the most important one to gain an edge. It requires the paths of least resistance for all the things that help to get it. By inversion, it requires the paths of most resistance for all things that makes things harder. When you have created the former, for example in the form of right habits, inertia grows and moves you forward. The right environment focuses on using your psychological tendencies to increase the probability to get an edge. Tendencies like social proof, associating yourself with the right signals, and the right authority figures you lean on, help you get what you want.

These are not the only models in the gaining an edge latticework. You also need strategies to create the paths of least resistance, the right environment, using natural cycles to your advantage, etc. There are other models you need, but I will let you figure out them if you are interested. This is also a more overall picture and misses the details. You can figure out more of them from many sources, including my new book.

I will probably continue with smaller latticeworks when I publish the next text.