In his recent best selling book, David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell makes the point that often advantages turn out to be disadvantages, and vice versa. I disagree with Gladwell’s proposition.
“Advantageous” events can’t turn out to be “disadvantageous” and vice versa because events never have an inherent meaning to begin with.
It’s not that what is true turns out not to be true; what we think is true is only a meaning that exists only in our minds; it never was inherently true to begin with.
Why are so many people confused about this issue?
The misconception Gladwell makes in his book is a common one and arises because people think events have inherent meanings. They don’t.
As I’ve explained in a number of earlier posts, events have no inherent meaning. But we think they do because we unconsciously and automatically give meaning to most events and then think the meaning is inherent in the event. As a result we often give an event a meaning that makes it disadvantageous to us. Then later on something changes and we re-label the original event as advantageous.
In fact, the event was neither disadvantageous to begin with nor did it turn out to be advantageous; both are meanings we ascribe to events; neither are meanings inherent in events.
Is dyslexia really a disadvantage to be overcome?
Gladwell tells stories about people with dyslexia, which is characterized by difficulty with learning to read fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal intelligence. He uses dyslexia as an example of something that is inherently disadvantageous to someone, who then rises above his disability to achieve success in some field. He would claim such a person turned a disadvantage into an advantage.
I disagree. Such a person used something that many people call a disadvantage in such a way one could then call the original “disadvantage an “advantage.” I contend the original situation wasn’t a disadvantage to begin with and therefore couldn’t turn into an advantage.
Why does this matter? Because many people are unable or even unwilling to turn a “bad” situation into a “good” situation. Once they have become convinced they have a real disadvantage, they live at the effect of it, unable to overcome it.
An alternative way of dealing with seemingly disadvantageous events
Many people attribute their lack of success in various areas of life to their “disadvantages.” Instead of telling people that it is possible to overcome their “disadvantages” and achieve their goals by hard work, I think more people would achieve their goals if they didn’t think that they had disadvantages to begin with.
To use Gladwell’s example, dyslexia might make it difficult to do well in a conventional school setting, but it doesn’t necessarily make it difficult to be successful in the arts or even creative in a business environment. So instead of telling a child with dyslexia that if he works hard he can overcome his “problem,” I’d rather tell him that he might have a more difficult time while he is in school, but that he could do very well in the arts, and that he could be a very innovative businessperson.
Do you get the difference? The difference could dramatically affect your what you achieve in life and your daily experience of life.
A possible confusion
When reading an early version of this article, my wife Shelly commented: “I’m not sure I agree. Wouldn’t being wealthy be an advantage because you would be able to hire tutors to help your child get better SAT scores?” But that assumes better SAT scores are an advantage because it helps you get into a “better” school. But that assumes that getting into a better school is an advantage because it will get you a better job, better connections, etc. But that assumes that a better job and better connections are an advantage because you probably will make more money. But that assumes that having more money is an advantage because it will make you happier.
And this goes on forever. We say an event is an advantage because of what it provides us with vis à vis another situation or vis à vis someone else. But that always assumes that what it provides us with is better, which again is assigning meaning to an event rather than discovering meaning in an event.
No matter how hard you look, you will never find meaning in reality. It is always in your mind.
What’s the lesson here for everyone?
Because no event has an inherent meaning, you should get that the meaning you give any event—whether it’s positive or negative—is never “the truth.” The meaning exists only in your mind, not “in” the event.
Instead of trying to cope with or deal effectively with something that isn’t really true to begin with, you will always be better off making a clear distinction between the event and the meaning—which will result in the meaning dissolving—thereby allowing you to view the event as it really is: neutral without any meaning.
Then deal with the event as best you can—not thinking you have a disadvantage you have to overcome or an advantage that will make things easier for you.
You will always be better off dealing with reality as it really is than with a meaning that exists only in your mind that you think it reality.
P.S. Over the next three weeks I’ll be releasing three videos on how to dissolve negative feelings in seconds – including the feelings that cause procrastination. To gain access to these videos, click here now.
Thanks for reading my blog. Please post your questions or comments about Malcolm Gladwell’s book or about the whole notion of overcoming disadvantages. Your comments add value for thousands of readers. I love to read them all and I will respond to as many as I can.
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Copyright © 2014 Morty Lefkoe
Hi Lauren,
Judgment usually means the conscious evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Meanings are created unconsciously and automatically. They are not based on any conscious process and evidence is not weighed.
So although some meanings may seem like judgments (e.g., what he did was wrong), meanings don’t fit most definitions of judgment.
Love, Morty
Morty,
Since I discovered your material online in 2010, I’ve pondered the many sayings and writings of philosophers of the past(something that I enjoy doing). This post triggers something I’ve read that Jesus purportedly said, “Judge not that you be so judged.” Would you say that judging is the same as attaching an unconscious meaning to something that has no inherent meaning and assuming it to be absolutely true?
Love and Light on your Journey,
Lauren
Thanks, Morty. That was a more clarifying answer for me. I am not afraid of dying, either, and have faced it several times–and obviously will again, at least once! :-) And I created (or discovered) the meaning in my life many years ago. It just seemed to me that many of your posts, including this one, were intent on eradicating all beliefs, and I had not read your philosophy about the big picture. I always need to see the big picture before I can follow the steps, and I think many others do too. So thank you.
Hi Morty and Matt,
Thank you both for replying to my post, but neither of you answered my essential question. Morty, I get totally about events being positive or negative depending on our perspective, just like the ancient Chinese story about luck.
beliefnet.com/Health/2005/06/Bad-Luck-Good-Luck-Who-Knows.aspx
And of course I understand firsthand about the blessings one can receive by refocusing one’s attention on important matters due to receiving an illness (or other event) like cancer. (Although I cannot really quite get my head around any possible blessings to come from the painful death of my young niece!) At any rate, my question is bigger. If you don’t believe events have any inherent meaning, do you believe that life itself has any meaning other than what we give it? Because, on a personal level, besides pondering how I am going to live the rest of my life, I also am pondering how I am going to face the very real possibility of my cancer metastasizing. My treatment was very difficult, and going through it again in order to live will be a very difficult decision for me to face. It would be an easy decision if, like you, I believed that the only meaning life has is the one that I attach to it. So I ask again, if you believe events do not have inherent meaning (and, yes, that is a belief), does life itself have meaning? Thank you.
Hi Sally,
I’m not sure if life has any inherent meaning. A lot of the Eastern wisdom traditions say that life is about becoming enlightened and then helping everyone else get enlightened. Others say that we all come here with a purpose and life is about finding that purpose (that meaning) and living it.
Both make sense but I have no strong position one way or the other.
My life has a meaning that I have chosen, but it very well could be that this is the purpose I was born with and it took me 40 years to discover it. In other words, maybe I discovered it instead of having chosen it. I’m not sure. But it is very real to me and it serves to guide my behavior.
But life is not the same thing as an event. Life could have meaning whereas specific events do not.
I am not attached to life; I feel complete; it has all turned out for me. And there is still much I want to do, without being attached to having to do it.
I had a blood cancer that is now in remission. I was not afraid of dying and I still kept doing what I love to do, finding more ways to help people. The meaning I have given my life (or that I was born with and then discovered) organizes everything I do. Create (or discover) the meaning for your own life.
Love, Morty
Morty,
I think your reply here is one of your best. Could you please elaborate on a few things for me.
1. Knowing your life purpose is a great gift, one which I’d love to possess. How did you discover your life’s purpose and know with certainty that it was your life’s purpose? What course would you recommend to others.
2. While I hope to get to where I’m unattached to my own life and not fearing my own death (not there yet), I find the thought of the death of one of my kids or very close loved ones crushing. I can’t believe I could unattach myself to them. What would be your thoughts in such a situtation.
Thank you for your great work and much love to you and your family.
Hi Morty,
The beliefs you listed there certainly do feel true to me :-(
Thank you for answering so quickly, I will call
Hi Morty, (and everyone)
I have a question, could use a little help. I am having pretty sad feelings because I just broke up with my boyfriend (I’m 47, boyfriend sounds juvenile but what other term fits?) Anyway, this man was not really good for me and the breakup could mean I’m a failure, but I have shed “mistakes and failure are bad” so I don’t feel that. I have assigned this meaning to the situation: Now that I am no longer involved with this man, who I was not happy with, I am free when the situation arises that a man I might like and would like me comes along. That is the best possible spin I can put on it, and it’s fairly easy for me to believe this. The question is, I still feel so sad and hurt, for some reason I want validation from this other guy, I wish that would say he was wrong…I am never going to get that I know, and why do I want that? It shouldn’t matter to me what he thinks, I broke up with him. Also I still feel that silly fear of scarcity, as if out of 6 billion people in the world there isn’t anyone who I will really get along with…I do not want to live out my life alone :-(
My question is what beliefs could possibly be buried in me that are bringing these negative thoughts???
I have worked my way through natural confidence, but maybe I need to repeat something?
Hi Trisha,
I’m sure you did fine with NC and you don’t need to repeat anything. The beliefs on that program are responsible for several different problems, but not all problems.
None of the beliefs are specifically relevant to relationships.
Possible beliefs: I’m alone in the world. No one wants me. I’m not loveable. If my relationships don’t work, it’s my fault. And more….
The best way to identify and then eliminate all the beliefs responsible for any issue is to have a session with a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator. For more information, please call us at (415) 506-4472.
Love,Morty
Hi Peter,
There is a significant difference between consciously analyzing a situation and giving it a meaning you know isn’t necessarily true … and unconsciously and automatically giving an event a meaning that you are convinced is inherent in the event and absolutely true.
It’s fine to make up the best possible meaning and know you have done so. It doesn’t make sense to think the meaning you unconsciously added to an event is the absolute truth.
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
Hi Morty,
Is it fair to say that it’s to your advantage that as many people sign up for your courses as is possible.When they do, is that real to you? Or maybe you are giving it reality, if you say yes.How can we make sense of our world if we don’t interpret based on our perceptions.I think humans can never know reality in this ever changing world.
How about we say that the event doesn’t have any single inherent meaning, but actually takes on a meaning in terms of the way we relate to it. If we having a starving child, we presumably want to feed that child. Let’s assume that we do. Losing our job is then disadvantageous in terms of our goals. It’s subjective – but no less real. It is a grave situation, and emphasizing that the situation has no inherent meaning, while useful for a lot of issues, doesn’t seem to help us here.
Rather than emphasizing that situations have no inherent meaning, another option is to say that we can create value from any situation – the relationship we have to our environment isn’t set for us, and we can choose a different one. Of course, actually creating value from the situation is not trivial and not just a matter of performing a mental exercise. However, I really believe we can create value from any situation. Perhaps we can use it to become more determined to give stability to our child; perhaps we can use it to help our child understand more about the suffering of others; perhaps we can use it to become stronger as a person and find new ways of saving money and generating income which will create a better life for us and the child in the long run. Anyway, what I have described is a very simplified version of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi’s theory of value creation. Makiguchi was a Japanese geographer, philosopher and educator in the early 20th century, and a very interesting person.
Hi Matt,
If we can create value from any situation, if we can see a negative aspect to any event, then the event is inherently meaningless and we ADD the meaning.
I’m not saying meaning is good or bad, only that the meaning we unconsciously and automatically add to events that we think is true, is never “the truth.” The meaning is never inherent in an event, it is always in our mind.
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
For those of you struggling with these concepts (as I did in the beginning of reading Morty’s work), try to think of it this way.
1. Something occurs (doesn’t matter what it is – cancer, dyslexia diagnosis, car crash, summer morning, drenching rain for a farmer’s dry fields etc.).
2. Once that thing occurs, we (NOT the event itself) interpret it through our own filters/beliefs/society’s agreement etc to decide if we think it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ To use Sally’s example, while we all may agree that cancer=bad, it’s because we have decided, perhaps ALL of us as a world, that cancer=bad. What Morty is saying is that cancer, ON IT”S OWN, has no meaning. It’s a diagnosis of disease. We then assign it a meaning, and most likely, that assigning is completely unconscious. But we do assign an interpretation of cancer=bad.
3. Morty is trying to get us to see that because we actually assign some sort of meaning to the event, we can, instead of the ‘bad’ meaning we’re assigning things, can also assign a different meaning. One that perhaps isn’t so tough or sad/depressing. Kind of like ‘look on the bright side’ kind of thing our parents used to tell us. We may not agree with the ‘bright’ side assessment, but it is just as valid as an assessment as the negative thing we (potentially automatically) think about.
Morty’s point is that nothing that occurs, in and of itself, has a meaning. It’s only, in that flash of interpretation, that we personally assign a meaning to it and depending on what we assign to it, can determine if we feel good or bad about the event.
I agree that’s it’s REALLY HARD to not assign cancer=bad, but what he’s trying to say here is the cancer itself is simply an occurrence/event/diagnosis. It’s only when we decide (even if everybody agrees) that cancer=bad, that cancer *becomes* bad.
Get it?
I think that there are no coincidences and that everything happens for a reason. However, we often never really know what that reason is… we tend to speculate in order to be able to categorize things.
Dear Morty,
I think Sally brings up a good point and something I have been wanting to ask about. It is clear to me that as human beings we inherently and naturally look for meaning. One of the things that you are teaching us is that events have no inherent meaning, which I think is a great awareness to have. So, what do you think this desire for meaning is all about? How can we use this inherent skill to our greatest benefit? I am pretty sure you have thought about this and look forward to your answer.
Many Thanks,
Andrea
Hi Andrea,
I don’t think we have a desire for meaning. I think that evolution gave us an automatic and unconscious meaning-making process that enabled us to respond immediately to dangers millions of years ago when we didn’t have a rational faculty.
Our brain still acts the same way, even though we no longer need an unconscious and automatic meaning-making process.
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
It’s difficult for me to buy your argument, having just finished treatment for cancer and having just lost a niece to cancer. If the cancer returns, shall I consider it neither advantageous nor disadvantageous? If I do so, it may be easier to discontinue treatment, as life has no real meaning. You are telling people they will be happier if they attach no meaning to events….when you boil it down, I think you really mean there is no meaning to life, other than what our minds attach to it. I accept that it is a possibility that there is no meaning to life, but if I truly embraced it, I would not go through further treatment in order to live, I can assure you.
Hi Sally. I posted a comment below which I think is relevant to the point your making. I should have posted it as a reply to your comment, I think.
Hi Sally,
I would not presume to tell you that your cancer has no meaning, but I have had numerous people who had cancer and AIDS tell me that their illness woke them up and got them started in a new direction in life. As a result they claimed their lives were better after getting the illness than before.
One person whom I quote in my book told me shortly before he died of AIDS many years ago that he was happier than he had ever been in his life. As a result of getting the illness he took a good look at his life and made a lot of profound changes, including eliminating a number of limiting beliefs.
As I wrote in my response to someone else, it’s fine to consciously think about an event and decide consciously the best way to deal with it. You don’t know for sure you are making the right choices, but you do your best. There is a significant difference between consciously analyzing a situation and giving it a meaning you know isn’t necessarily true … and unconsciously and automatically giving an event a meaning that you are convinced is inherent in the event and absolutely true.
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
The meaning we give to situations in rhe future but what about meaning i gave in the past? It effects the meaning i give today,
Hi Asaf,
Yes, the meaning you gave events in the past (which become our beliefs) certainly do affect the meaning we give events today. But the initial meaning existed only in your mind as does your current meaning. Neither are “the truth.”
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
all perspective. always.
I agree, as a dyslexic myself I know that the interpretation of how well I ‘read/comprehend ‘ things is completely context based. One person will think i’m the most creative intelligent person they’ve met, another will think i’m slightly strange and a little thick – it all depends what sort of style they have of interpretation. So at the end of the day, the only person who has control of that opinion of ‘am I at an advantage or disadvantage by being dyslexic’ is me. I can’t say I’m qt a point where I don’t occasionally get frustrated about having to double/tripple check my spelling for things, but there are some things like drawing, acting, directing finding associations that i’m very good at. So It really is a matter of perspective, which, as you mentioned, has no big fat ‘THIS IS THEWAY THINGS ARE’ lurking inside of it, the meaning is only that which we give it.
I would however be very interested in what you have to say on the paradoxical slogan ‘There are no truths’.
I’m a bit confused here.
Are you saying that there is no meaning in all events as in no advantage and disadvantage?
Hi Wan,
Yes, I’m saying that events have no meaning, therefore no event can be said to be advantageous or disadvantageous.
For more details see two earlier posts: https://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/ and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/really-disasters/
Love, Morty
I see.
After I reread the article I realized I overlooked the following sentence “Then deal with the event as best you can—not thinking you have a disadvantage you have to overcome or an advantage that will make things easier for you.”
Great stuff, Morty. This way of thought can help people to move forward no matter what the world has given them.
I have a question: can talent be said as an event?
Hi Wan,
No, talent is not an event.
Love, Morty