3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Bending Reality
3 Ideas in 2 Minutes on Bending Reality
Siege of Tyre, Quibble & How to Bend Reality
When I turned on paid subscriptions a year ago, I pledged to donate 5% of my yearly revenue to Save the Elephants. It‘s time to make good on my promise.
As I’m not exactly raking it in yet, I bumped up the amount and donated 250 AUD to the charity. Thank you to all the legends who have contributed to keeping The Mind Collection alive. 🐘
I. Siege of Tyre
The Siege of Tyre took place in today’s Lebanon in 332 BC. Tyre was a Phoenician city-state and island located several hundred metres off the coast. Due to their location and strong naval force, the Tyrians had a strategic advantage over any land forces attempting to capture their city. That is until Alexander the Great besieged Tyre and bent reality to his will. Kind of.
Under Alexander, the Macedonian army began to build a causeway towards the island. Slowly but gradually Tyre was on its way to becoming part of the mainland. Building the land bridge was not without its difficulties. But eventually, the Tyrians came within reach of Alexander’s artillery. With a combination of his catapults and growing naval fleet, the Macedonian king managed to take the city. Its days as an island were numbered.
II. Quibble
Beware of seeming realities expressed through language. In storytelling, a Quibble is a loophole in a statement or agreement that, oddly enough, opens up through the literal interpretation of the conditions. The plot device is often used in stories revolving around an ominous prophecy.
Take J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, for example. The Lord of the Nazgûl, one of the major antagonists of the epic fantasy, is said to be virtually invincible: "Not by the hand of man shall he fall." Good for Éowyn and Merry, a woman and a hobbit, who end up killing the faceless swordsman.
I’ve written more about similar phenomena in my essay about Loki’s Wager: How to Defeat the Devil in the Detail.
III. How to Bend Reality
Reality is not as fixed as it may seem. Negotiation expert Chris Voss explains how we can exploit human nature to bend reality in a negotiation.
Take the same person, change one or two variables, and $100 can be a glorious victory or a vicious insult. Recognizing this phenomenon lets you bend reality from insult to victory. […]
Imagine that I offer you $20 to run a three-minute errand and get me a cup of coffee. You’re going to think to yourself that $20 for three minutes is $400 an hour. You’re going to be thrilled.
What if then you find out that by getting you to run that errand I made a million dollars. You’d go from being ecstatic for making $400 an hour to being angry because you got ripped off.
—Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference
In case you’re interested, I took Voss’ MasterClass on the art of negotiation. Here’s my review with the top 5 lessons learned. 🐘
Have a great week,
Chris
themindcollection.com
P.S.: My latest article is about 7 Productivity Hacks I Use to Overcome Writer’s Block.