The Methodology
Pattern recognition as survival technology. Not telling you what to see—methodology for seeing it yourself.
The Problem
When Benjamin Zander showed the invisible gorilla video, I missed it completely. Once he told me what to look for, it was obvious.
But here’s the methodological challenge: in your own life, there is no Zander. No one can tell you what YOUR gorilla looks like. Your parents can’t. Your boss can’t. Career counselors can’t.
Because your pattern is uniquely yours.
The Approach
The methodology I developed integrates multiple domains:
Multiple data sources — Don’t trust any single framework. Draw from many: analytics and intuition, conventional and unconventional, conscious and somatic.
Pattern recognition — Look for convergence. When several independent signals point in the same direction, that overlap is meaning. Not proof—but signal worth following.
Biomarkers — Your body knows before your mind does. Energy levels, time perception, physical sensations—all are data. That drained feeling despite success? That’s not a character flaw. That’s a system alert.
Quantified self — Track your experiences. You cannot find a pattern in a dataset that doesn’t exist.
In This Section
- The Competence Trap — When success becomes the problem
- The Invisible Gorilla — Why you can’t find your path when no one tells you what to look for
- Biomarkers — Your body as detection system
- N=1 Experiments — Running your own trials
This isn’t “follow my path.” It’s “here’s how I found mine—use the approach to find yours.”