Perry Marshall: Discernment and the Invisible Edge

At my first engineering job there was a guy in the next cubicle named Boris. He was a Russian immigrant.

Boris explained to me what it was like to stand in bread lines in the Soviet Union and have virtually zero choices… then come to America and walk into a supermarket and suddenly be assaulted with choices, inundated with options from every direction.

The effect on him was visceral. Physically overpowering. It was so shocking, some of his Russian friends literally got on the plane and went back home, to where the number of choices was manageable once again.

That conversation happened 20 years ago. How many more choices do we have now than then? No less than 100 times more, probably 1000 times more.

1000 times more people talking and sending out newsletters, and only you can decide who to pay attention to.

1000 times more places to spend or invest your money.

1000 times more businesses you can get into.

1000 times more opportunities to succeed. 1000 times more opportunities to screw up.

How do you navigate?

Being tech savvy won’t help.

College education won’t help.

A faster Internet connection or 30” widescreen monitor won’t help. Having more connections and a bigger rolodex won’t help. Being more motivated won’t help.

Being a better copywriter won’t help. Getting more visitors to your website won’t help. A bigger email list won’t help.

No, all these things will only get you in more trouble, faster, unless you have THE number one 21st century success skill:

In the 21st century the #1 success skill- a skill that NOBODY ever seems to talk about – is…

Discernment.

Discernment is the thing that makes the invisible edge visible. It’s the thing that tells you what you need to know – when you don’t even know what you don’t know.

I wish you could just read a book and suddenly GET discernment. I wish I could spring some magic pixie dust on all my customers and they would suddenly have it.

Books help and pixie dust probably helps too. But the only way I know for people to acquire discernment is to seek out other people who have… discernment.

At our last Mastermind, Benji Rabhan, who made the President’s Empact100 List one of the 100 top young entrepreneurs in the US, said every time he comes to the group, he gets advice that steers him away from a project that would have wasted 6 months of his life.

THAT is discernment.

He gets it from our group, the hot seats, our lunchtime and dinner time conversations.

Seek discernment and you will never lack for anything else.