*Typing*

When confidence is present, it's a performance-enhancing drug. It can power us to extraordinary feats physically, intellectually and emotionally. However, confidence is fleeting. Sure, there are rituals we can do to momentarily boost our confidence. But, it's a fickle emotion to rely too heavily on. From one moment to the next, our confidence can be soaring in the stratosphere or buried six feet under.

Because of this, we should place less emphasis on our confidence and more emphasis on our commitment. We build up our commitment by proving to ourselves that we are capable of keeping the promises we make to ourselves. This proof can happen daily in the form of small rules we make and obey. Maybe we run a mile for every cocktail we down the night before. Maybe we don't touch social media with a ten-foot pole until the sun goes down. Maybe we never order desert at dinner.

The rules themselves don't matter. What matters is that we keep them. And, by keeping them, we become the kinds of people that are committed to ourselves, even in the circumstances when confidence is fleeting.

We are individually ignorant in a lot of areas. But, rarely in the same areas. So, miraculously, this individual ignorance can give way to collective genius. If each of us is quite knowledgeable in just one or two topics and ignorant in a hundred others, we can not only get by as a culture but we can thrive.

However, for this collective genius to occur, we as individuals must agree to be honest about

1). What we know

2). What we don't know

This latter half of the agreement is something we struggle with. Humankind has gotten itself into quite a bit of trouble over the years pretending to know what it does not.

Back in 1817, an economist named David Ricardo came up with the concept of 'comparative advantage'. It's the ability for a country to produce a product better and easier than their trading partners. Canada has a comparative advantage in maple syrup. They produce 75% of the planet's maple syrup. That's an astonishing amount.

Now, if Canada were stubborn, they would also try to grow avocados. And, with enough investment of time and money, they could probably grow enough avocados to support their country's avocado consumption and perhpas a few others. But, they would have to war against their own country's climate, constructing tens of thousands of square feet in greenhouses. What makes more sense is for Canada to get their avocados from Mexico. This allows them to focus on producing maple syrup.

Comparative advantage doesn't just apply to trade between countries. It's how businesses do business with each other. Find your comparative advantage. What can your business do better and easier than everyone else? Once you find this comparative advantage, leverage the hell out of it.

You raise a price, sales go down. You lower a price, sales go up. This is supply and demand. What's fascinating is thinking about the exceptions to this rule. What are the products and services where this economic theory does not apply? The answer is products and services whose prices are directly correlated with the quality of the product. Parents don't want to buy the cheapest car seats. Chefs don't want to buy the cheapest knives. Skydivers don't want to buy the cheapest parachutes. Supply and demand works when the quality of the product that is in demand is an afterthought. However, when quality matters, the theory must be reversed. To increase sales, you must increase prices.

Mistakes feel good. If they didn't, we wouldn't keep making them. One definition of a mistake is the conscious or unconscious decision to trade short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Getting angry and saying hurtful things is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Lying is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. Cheating is trading short-term pleasure for long-term pain. We make the same mistakes over and over again because there is something in those mistakes that is providing us with a sense of pleasure. Or, at the very least, pain relief. This doesn't mean we should continue making the same mistakes. It just means we should forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made. We're not monsters. We're moths seeking an escape from our suffering and so we fly towards the warmth of an open flame. Only to find more pain.