A Book with Bubble Tea (波！） - Give you a different cultural perspective in parenting, business and life

[Self-Growth] EP36 - Clarity in Chaos: Seeing the True Essence | 《The Underlying Logic》 by Liu, Ren [PART TWO]

• Meara He

Share episode

Last week, we embarked on the journey of identifying the underlying logic. Today we are diving into the heart of exploring three fascinating underlying logics that the author has meticulously unveiled for us. But that's not all. We are also going to discuss how to discern during the journey of truth finding, so that we don't become prey to others' manipulation. Join us in this captivating episode to discover the answer and transform the way we perceive the world around us. Get ready for an enlightening adventure.




Show Note

Book Title in Traditional Chinese: 底層邏輯：看清這個世界的底牌
Book Title in English: The Underlying Logic - How to See the Essence of Things.
Author: 劉潤 Liu, Ren


Follow us on IG abookwithbubbletea
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@ABookWithBubbleTeaWithMeara
Would you mind giving us some feedback? Click HERE


Music Credit
Composer / Writer / Author: KROTOV VLADYSLAV, IPI: 378003660, MoodMode.

Speaker 1:

Last week, we embarked on the journey of identifying the underlying logic. Today we are diving into the heart of exploring three fascinating underlying logics that the author has meticulously unveiled for us. But that's not all. We are also going to discuss how to discern during the journey of truth finding, so that we don't become prey to others' manipulation. Join us in this captivating episode to discover the answer and transform the way we perceive the world around us. Get ready for an enlightening adventure.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to A Book with Bubble Tea With your host, mira Hee. Here I share takeaways from East Asian books on parenting, startups and self-growth. Seeking insights beyond the typical English shelf, want to be a better parent and achieve more in life? You are in the right place. Grab your bubble tea and let's dive in. Hi everyone, welcome back to the new episode of A Book with Bubble Tea.

Speaker 1:

I'm your host, mira Hee. In today's show, we are going to continue the journey of understanding underlying logics from the most famous business consultant in China, leo Ruo. He's the founder of the company the Leo Ren. It's the first time, actually, for us to split one book into two episodes. I mean first because I believe this book is such a great read it truly deserves it. And second, because most of you guys probably will never have a chance to read it in Chinese and I don't think it will ever be translated into English anytime soon. So I thought the best approach would be for me to give a more detailed introduction of the book so that you have a chance to also gain the valuable insights just by simply listening to it. Okay, last week I enjoyed sharing with you the system dynamics approach to uncovering the structure of the system behind everything we see in the world, and we also discussed some fun case studies on how Microsoft China addressed their poor lunch quality issue and how the US Air Force managed to improve their parachute quality rate to 100%. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, definitely do check it out. And in today's show we are going to talk about three underlying logics that the author has identified for us, then we're also going to talk about the differences between facts, viewpoints, positions and beliefs, and why it's so important to discern them. So that's what we're going to talk about today, and if I haven't yet defined what underlying logic is, whereas if this is the first episode that you listen to it, essentially, according to the author, it's something constant and changeable.

Speaker 1:

We're common. Among things, any methodology we develop should be based on the underlying logic and some environmental variables. So, for example, whether we are Japanese, americans or South Africans, our human nature doesn't change. Some aspects of our human nature include our desire to maximize our personal interest, to satisfy our fleshest desires and to protect our beloved ones, our offsprings. However, due to different environmental variables, such as our cultural, religious or social, economic backgrounds, our behaviors may vary. Yet our human nature remains the common denominator for all human beings, and our human nature is the underlying logic for our behavior. Only when we grasp the underlying logics of ourselves and how this world works can we continuously and dynamically understand the core of anything we see in life. So, without further ado, now I'm going to share three underlying logics that I found very interesting from this book.

Speaker 1:

The first underlying logic whose fault is it? Before I begin, I'm going to ask you a question. Okay, the author asked about it in his book. Let me know what you think. So we got a bad guy here, we call him bad guy A. And then we have a good guy here, we'll call him B, and we have C who owns the construction site. One day this bad guy A tricked this good guy B to go into the construction site of C's. Somehow C didn't lock the site, so B managed to get in, but at the construction site B fell from somewhere high up and died as a result. So now the question is who is that fault? Is it the bad guy A that tricked the good guy B to enter the site? Or is it B's own stability that got tricked by A? Or is it C's fault that he didn't lock his site? I'll give you three seconds to think about it All right time's up.

Speaker 1:

Whose fault is it in your opinion? Well, obviously there is no clear cut answer to this. Whose fault is it? Depending on your perspective and the problem you are trying to address here?

Speaker 1:

Here the author offers three perspectives that most embody in our thinking. The first is the thinking of a legalist Based on the case, especially if there is enough evidence, then it's clear right, it's A's fault, without a question. It's a deliberate murder. However, if you think about it, even though this judgment might be satisfying, but it really does not help to prevent this thing from happening again, right? So now the author offers the second perspective, the thinking of an economist, based on the case. The economist might have a different idea. They might think it's actually C's fault. What? Why is it C's fault? Well, but if you think about it, if you want to prevent this thing from happening again, what cost the least amount to the society to prevent it from happening? So, even though the law can punish A where people like A, from doing such a thing, to B, the cost is high. However, on the other hand, if they can introduce a policy basically to punish C for not locking up the side so all the owners of construction sites locked the sides up then in no time it would drastically reduce similar cases from happening again. So from the perspective of the overall aggregated social cost, even it might seem unfair, it's a more effective policy than simply punishing the wrong person. And last but not least, the thinking of a businessman. If you adopt the thinking of a businessman, you might think well, who cares? Whose fault is it right, b's already dead. So in terms of maximizing B's interest, b can only blame himself. B shouldn't even be so stupid to be tricked by A to enter that site in the first place.

Speaker 1:

Another example imagine a truck speeding towards a pedestrian and shout at him to get out of the way because it's dangerous. But the pedestrian continues walking at his own pace and says well, the driver of the truck cannot run over me. If he does, then he is violating traffic rules and he needs to be solely responsible for it. So why should I give way? And guess what happened In the end? The pedestrian gets run over and is killed on the road. Whose fault is this? Obviously it's a truck driver's. But does it matter? No matter what the judgment is, it's not going to bring back the dead pedestrian right Today.

Speaker 1:

If your job is just to comment on the incident, you can certainly choose the legalist perspective and blame the truck driver, or you can adopt the economist perspective to introduce a policy that will reduce such incidents from happening again. However, if you were the pedestrian that is about to be run over, the author suggests to adopt the businessman's perspective. It's my fault, everything is my fault, and get out of the way. Therefore, the underlying logic of the real world is whoever suffers the greatest loss is at fault. You can only rely on yourself to be stronger and to change the outcome of undesirable incidents. And, whether we like it or not, this is very true and I think we, as parents, really need to teach this perspective to our kids to get away from unnecessary risk that can dramatically harm them, even if they do nothing wrong or nothing at fault from the legalist perspective. For example, when I used to live in London, I often saw young girls getting very drunk on the street. They probably didn't even know how they managed to make it back home. So, yes, certainly it's those girls right to drink, to party, to dress up however way they want and get drunk, and they are protected by the law. But the reality is, if anything bad happened to them when they are drunk and being so vulnerable, they are doomed. It really doesn't matter whether the bad person gets punished or not. The victims usually suffer the most. So this underlying logic is a great reminder of the reality and I think we really need to teach our kids and remind ourselves about it. I think. By knowing this, we can make more sensible choices in life. The underlying logic number two ability, times, efficiency, times, leverage is the business model for our own life success.

Speaker 1:

Leonardo da Vinci is a great painter. We must have all heard about or seen his famous painting, the Mona Lisa Smile. But do you know, apart from just being a great painter, he was also a great sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, botanist, writer, etc. Oh, I even feel tired just by reading this out. Leonardo da Vinci's life was almost like he had a cheat code. However, he is not the only one in human history to have been outstanding in multiple disciplines. Herbert Simon, known as the father of decision theory, won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978. He held a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago, a doctor of science from Yale University, doctor of Laws from McGill University, doctor of philosophy from Moon University in Sweden, doctor of economics from Erasmus University, rotterdam, doctor of Laws from the University of Michigan and doctor of Laws from the University of Pittsburgh. Whew, another long list. And we have Bob Dylan. He is an outstanding musician who has won Grammy awards, as well as the Golden Globe and Oscar in the film industry. But the list doesn't end here. He also won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism and Nobel Prize in Literature. Bob Dylan is also a higher achiever across multiple disciplines.

Speaker 1:

It seems there are some people who, once they excel in one area, continuously achieve great success in many other areas too. The level of success they achieve in one life is so outstanding that other people cannot match up, even if you let an ordinary folk like me live ten lives. How did they manage to do so? The author said it's because there is an underlying logic to achieve great success in life. It's the same as running a business. It's your ability times your efficiency, times your leverage. And in terms of ability, the author says the greatest ability is the ability to acquire abilities faster than others. If we quantify it, that means nailing something that takes other people five years to do in only two years. And in order to achieve so, the author says he even drew 74 different mathematical models and he finally came to a conclusion he found the most effective way to achieve it is to work longer.

Speaker 1:

If average people only work eight hours a day, then if you can work 16 hours a day, it will speed up your speed in acquiring a new skill. But you got to work hard in the 16 hours too. Maybe you was golf at this idea, but that's the reality. You know, I want to run a podcast beside my work and my child caring duty, so I have to do it at night when others are resting right. And many great CEOs are known to work long hours too, like Naveedia's Jensen Huang wake up at 4am in the morning and work 14 hours a day straight after his morning exercise.

Speaker 1:

Elon Musk is said to work typically 16 hours a day. In fact, when Elon Musk was once asked by a student on how he achieved the level of success, elon Musk simply answered work super hard. If you think about it like these days, people worship passion a lot, like we often tell people, you got to be passionate if you want to be successful. But what truly means by passion, if you break it down, is the ability to help us endure long hour of doing something because we love it so much. So the bottom line is still working long hour, working super hard. It's just that, because you enjoy it so much so you didn't even feel you were working.

Speaker 1:

However, simply working super hard is not enough. The author reminded us that you need to be highly effective and diligent. So it's working super hard and effective. Surely, those people sacrifice hugely to achieve the level of success they have now. So it depends on whether that's something you want, you desire, and whether you are willing to pay the price for it or not.

Speaker 1:

Nonetheless, the rule is there Working super hard and effective is the fastest way to acquire any abilities faster than others. And this is the first element of achieving success in life. Achieving efficiency is the second element. Here. It's how we can use one hour to produce the results that typically take three hours. A bit counterintuitive to me, but the author says the first thing to do if you want to achieve efficiency it's not to speed things up, but to make the choice.

Speaker 1:

The author said that the way can truly improve our efficiency is not trying to save 17 seconds out of 17 minutes, but to use the 17 minutes to save the 17 hours from things that are not necessary to be done. So now you need to make a choice. It's this thing that you are going to commit the next 17 hours on really worth it? Is it something you have to do in order to realize your goal or is it just going to make a trivial difference? So it doesn't really matter. Once you make the choice on things that truly matter to commit to, then you can think about how to use the right tools and method to achieve great results faster. The author shares a story of a little boy who went missing in June 2017 in China. His family was eager to get as much help as possible from anyone that could possibly provide them with any information about the missing boy. What did they do? Get up posters, speak to people, were post on social media. Begged for people to forward to their friends. They didn't do any of that.

Speaker 1:

Instead, they posted a picture of the missing little boy in a bikini on the government's official portal for missing kids and instantly that picture went viral. It's unusual to see a little boy wearing a bikini. In no time they received more than 10,000 comments and 30,000 forwards and gained huge exposure and publicity. And in just one day the boy was found and reunited with his family. This family knows how to use the right tool to achieve the effect they want faster for sure. And the last element here is leverage. Leverage helps amplify and expedite your success. You can have the leverage of the team, finding great talents to join you. The leverage of product selling product instead of services to break the ceiling of growth for your business. The leverage of capital your small investment can generate huge returns. And the leverage of influence. And out of all, the author said the most scariest leverage is the leverage of influence that you have the ability to speak to the minds of people and motivate them to do things you want. So the author said try to improve your public speaking skills, writing skills and networking skills. It will help us leverage on our influence dramatically. So here it is the business model for you to achieve your life's success your ability times, efficiency times, leverage.

Speaker 1:

Underline logic number three those people you have no value to are not your connections. We know connections are important and many of us want to expand our networks because we believe that one day, when we are in need, our connections will be our assets to help us out. But the author asked a critical question why would those people want to help you out? Certainly there are people nice enough to do your favor once or twice, but how likely is it to be something stable or continuous? The author said the only way to truly build your connections and expand your network is when you are of value to other people. Only when you can help them out in their time of need will they help you out, because connections is all about being of value to other people and have a fair exchange. Or if you want to improve the quality of your network and have more valuable connections, the way to do it is to become more valuable to others. Even without any connections, money, resources, you can become an expert in your area or let your achievements or portfolios speak for themselves. They will attract more outstanding people who want to connect with you. So the underlying logic of connection is not how many people you know, or not even who you know, but whom you can help. Only those people you can help and you are of value to them are your connections.

Speaker 1:

Okay, after examining the three underlying logic, I want to go back to the last episode's discussions of how to develop the correct underlying logic, and this time I want to quickly share the author's reminders on the differences between facts, viewpoints, positions and beliefs, because it's critical in our journey to find the truth or the underlying logic. So what are them? First, facts these are easy to understand, right, facts are facts. That's exactly what happened, like the temperature now is 30 Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit. Viewpoints are our opinions based on facts, like I feel hot because it's 30 Celsius. And positions are viewpoints influenced by interest, like a property management company that doesn't want to switch on the AC. So even if it's hot, like 30 Celsius hot for many people, the company might say, oh, it's not hot, so what they said is not based on the fact, it's not based on the viewpoints, but on their positions. Beliefs are based on our faith, so everything within our beliefs makes sense but doesn't make sense with other beliefs, and we need to watch out for others trying to disguise viewpoints where positions ask facts, like the well-known case that tobacco companies fund scientific research. Scientific quote unquote supporting claims that tobacco does not cause cancer. They are hiding their positions behind seemingly factual science Except science. Now, in this case it's just their disguise for their position that's driven by their corporate interest. And it's not only companies that do that. In fact, things that try to influence our thinking without us being aware of is everywhere.

Speaker 1:

The author points out that one of the most powerful ways that we get brainwashed without knowing it or we can try to brainwash other people as well is by making this why statement. This kind of why is often followed by a statement that is not facts but simply someone's perspective, like their viewpoints or positions. But our brain is somehow very strange. When we hear why, we immediately start thinking about why and automatically accept whatever has been said. After the why, like you must have heard others said, why do bad things always happen to good people? Or why, after trying everything, my company still cannot make money?

Speaker 1:

The author called this kind of why plus viewpoints statement a syringe that can inject any thinking into people's brains and that thinking is not factual because that thinking is someone's viewpoints and the only way for us not to get manipulated or brainwashed is to question is this true? Is this a fact or is this just someone's viewpoint? Like, is it true that bad things always happen to good people? Does nothing bad happen to bad people? By being aware of this kind of why statement plus viewpoint thing, we can avoid falling into the trap.

Speaker 1:

Furthermore, we should not only watch out for other people's manipulation, but we should also be wary of our own brain's manipulation. That's why the author says we should always empty our minds, not let our experiences, positions, beliefs or viewpoints distort our view when we are trying to seek the truth or the underlying logic. And I think this is a very important reminder because, like the author says, there are so many things trying to influence our opinions, our thinking or trying to inject ideas into our brain. We need to be very careful and be very wary about it and to guard our mind and guard our heart with critical thinking to validate what other people are telling us. Alright, that's about this great book, liu Ren's underlying logic subtitle how to See the Essence of Things. Again, it's such a great read. If you can read Chinese, I'll definitely recommend you to go and check it out yourselves.

Speaker 1:

Before ending, I just want to share two of my favorite quotes from this book. Note number one the author said when someone holds not a viewpoint but a position, when someone lets their butt decide their head, what you should do is to tell them it's good for you. Don't argue about right or wrong with someone who is entrenched in their position. For them, it's only about winning or losing. I can't tell you how many people hold positions instead of viewpoints that I have encountered in my life. Even scholars do that.

Speaker 1:

Once they are famous about a theory, then the following books are all about defending their viewpoints or defending their positions. It's not about seeking the truth anymore, and in fact I just had an encounter of a tenant who are like that. You know we just met a tenant at work that whatever agrees with him is right, whatever disagrees with him is wrong, despite the black and white written in the contract. So good for you. And the other quote I love from the book is the truth of a matter can have millions of possibilities.

Speaker 1:

Seeing one fact eliminates a host of illusions. Many people, upon seeing only three to five facts, rush to adopt the one that best fits their values as the truth. The further you are from the facts, the closer you are to conspiracy theories. I hope we all have the desire and the ability to seek the truth, to uncover underlying logic of the world and to protect ourselves from becoming the prey of others' manipulation or even the manipulation of our brains. That's the episode today. I hope you enjoy it. We do put a lot of effort into producing each show and we really want to enrich your thinking and your life. So if you like the show, please subscribe to our podcast, spotify or YouTube channel. Let's enjoy our bubble tea and continue learning and growing together Until next time, bye.