Most people think intelligence is fixed. You're born smart or you're not. End of story.

This is Industrial Age propaganda designed to keep you in your lane.

Intelligence isn't your SAT score or how quickly you can solve puzzles. Intelligence is your ability to systematically improve outcomes in areas that matter to you, while remaining grounded in reality about what's actually within your control.

The brutal truth: Life is a complex chain of cause and effect, and most people get lost in the chaos. They want better relationships, more money, perfect health, creative fulfillment — but they approach these goals like drunk people trying to solve a Rubik's cube in the dark.

They pull random levers, hoping something will work. When it doesn't, they blame circumstances, genetics, or bad luck. They never realize they're playing a game with learnable rules.

The Chain of Cause and Effect

Every outcome in your life is the result of a chain reaction. Small inputs create massive outputs through compound effects. The problem isn't that you can't influence these chains — it's that you don't understand which variables actually matter.

Take career advancement. Most people think success comes from working harder. So they burn themselves out, wondering why the promotion never comes. They're optimising the wrong variable.

Meanwhile, someone else learns to showcase their wins to the boss—polished, clear, and confident. The boss thinks, “This person’s a Rockstar!” even if others are working harder, but quietly. That one skill—communicating success—propels them up the career ladder, leaving the harder workers stuck. It’s not about outworking everyone; it’s about nailing the right move in the chain.

This isn't unfair. It's systematic.

The people who get what they want aren't necessarily smarter or more talented. They've learned to identify which parts of the cause-and-effect chain they can actually control, then they relentlessly optimize those variables.

You can do this too. But you need a system.

You don't need to be a genius born with a silver spoon in your brain. Intelligence isn't fixed; it's hackable. A handful of people master segments of this chain—like turning a hobby into a thriving business or building unbreakable habits or getting quick at math or coming up with contextual high-quality jokes very fast—and they thrive in those areas. They can't conquer every segment (we're all mortals with 24-hour days and Netflix addictions), but if we were immortal vampires with infinite time? Total world domination. For us mere humans, the key is zeroing in on bite-sized mastery. And you can do it with just two steps that, when combined, turbocharge your smarts and transform your life.

The Two Ways Intelligence Expands

===================================

There are two fundamental skills that, when combined, transform your ability to engineer the outcomes you want:

Step 1: Iteration

Step 2: Explanatory Knowledge

Most people do one or the other, but never both. That's why they stay stuck.

Step 1: The Power of Iteration – Your Personal Experiment Lab

Think of life as a giant equation: Input A + Input B = Outcome C. Want a better job? Healthier body? Deeper connections? Most people plug in the same tired variables over and over, getting the same crappy results. Iteration flips the script. It's about tweaking one variable at a time, testing it in the real world, observing the fallout, and tweaking again until bingo—you hit the outcome you want.

Picture this: You're trying to increase your revenue. Instead of vaguely "working harder", iterate like a mad scientist.

Variable 1: Wake up an hour earlier to skill-build. Test it for a week—did your productivity spike? If not, ditch it.

Variable 2: Network with one new OG daily. Track the chats—any doors opening? Rinse, repeat.

Doing this allows you to outsmart people with sheer effort, Like if you're learning math, if it would take 10 iterations of trigonometry sprints before the smartypants figure it out, you can simply do 100 trigonometry iterations and learn it before they can do their next round of 5.

It's like debugging code in your life: Small changes, rapid feedback, massive wins.

But here's the catch—iteration alone is like throwing spaghetti at the wall. It's inefficient. You could waste years testing dumb variables (e.g., "What if I wear red socks to meetings?").

Also, it's insane if I tell you that you have to do 1000 cold calls before you learn to sell your first product. Hence the second step: Arming yourself with killer explanations to pick the right variables faster.

Step 2: Finding the Golden Mean – The Art of Smart Guessing

Good explanations are your secret weapon for cracking life’s puzzles. They’re ideas that are rock-solid, make sense, and help you move forward.

Picture your car won’t start. A bad explanation is: “It’s broken because it’s Tuesday.”

That’s nonsense—it’s vague, explains nothing, and falls apart if the car fails another day. A good explanation, like “The battery’s dead because the lights were left on,” is clear, points to a real cause, and gives you a fix—charge the battery, and you’re rolling again. (Shout out to David Deutsch).

So, what makes an explanation good or bad? There are four simple principles—like a checklist for spotting winners:

Rain: A bad explanation is “It rains because the sky is sad.” That’s fuzzy—what does “sad” even mean? A good one is “Rain happens when water vapor in clouds cools and condenses into droplets.” It’s clear and precise. Or why do elephants have big trunks? Not “Because they’re greedy for air,” but “Their trunks evolved to grab food, drink water, and spray dust for cooling.” Specific, not wishy-washy.

For the car, you can test “dead battery” by checking the lights or jumping the battery. A bad one like “Tuesday broke it” can’t be tested—how do you prove a day did it?

“Bulls charge at red flags.” Test it: Bulls are colorblind to red; they charge at moving objects.

Or why stars twinkle: Not “They’re winking at us,” but “Light bends through Earth’s atmosphere.” You can test that with a telescope. Good explanations hold up when you poke them.

Dead battery? Charge it. Done. A bad one like “Tuesday’s fault” leaves you stuck. Why do you keep catching colds? Not “Bad luck,” but “Viruses spread through contact or air.” So, wash your hands or wear a mask.

Or why do plants grow toward light? Not “They love the sun,” but “They use sunlight for energy.” That tells you to move your plant to a sunny spot. Good explanations point to action.

For the car, “lights left on” explains the dead battery perfectly; any other reason doesn’t add up.

Or rain: “Water vapor condenses” fits because it could not be otherwise; “sky is sad” could be swapped for anything like "the gods are crying" and changes nothing.

Why do elephants have trunks? “For grabbing and spraying” fits their survival needs; “for looking fancy” could apply to any animal and fails.

Good explanations are locked in tight—there’s no other way it could be.

How do you snag these golden explanations without drowning in mental obesity?

Most failures happen because people swing to extremes: They obsess over tiny and pointless details (like micromanaging every calorie in a diet or changing the end of their email from "Yours sincerely" to "Yours faithfully") but miss the big picture, or they skim broad advice ( "Just eat healthy!") without diving deep enough to make it stick.

They try a few tweaks too many times (stubbornly) or too many tweaks too few times (scattered). Worse, they ignore the chain's signals, like a detective overlooking clues.

The fix? Hunt for the "golden mean"—that sweet spot of ideas worth betting on. Not too narrow and nitpicky, not too vague and surface-level. Just right, like Goldilocks raiding the bears' intellectual porridge.

To nail this, lean on methods. But don't get bogged down in tactics; focus on the principles that make any method pop. There are three big ones:

Principle I: Capped Downside – Play It Safe on the Losers

Before chasing an idea, ask: What's the worst that could happen? Cap that downside near zero. Testing a new workout? Don't blow your budget on fancy gear—start with bodyweight exercises at home. If it flops, you've lost nada but a bit of sweat. Low risk means you can experiment freely without fear gut-punching you.

Principle II: Unlimited Upside – Chase the Moonshots

Flip side: What's the best-case scenario? Aim for ideas with upside that's practically infinite. Inventing a new app could flop (capped downside: time invested), but if it hits? Global impact, wealth, freedom. Skip low-stakes conjectures like "Which coffee mug boosts my mood?" Go for game-changers: "How can I automate my job to free up time for passions?"

Principle III: Asymmetric Payoff – Stack the Deck in Your Favor

The holy grail: Bets where wins are huge and losses are tiny. It's like a lottery where tickets cost pennies but prizes are yachts. A conjecture (fancy word for "educated guess") should favor massive gains over puny pains. Writing a blog post? Downside: A few hours. Upside: Viral fame, opportunities galore. Asymmetric magic.

These principles aren't just theory—they're your filter for opportunity cost. Every idea you pursue means skipping another. So, evaluate based on impact: How much quality and quantity does this create or destroy? Consider the impact of a bomb. A new chemical compound could save lives (huge impact) compared to a mediocre video game (low impact). Prioritize conjectures that ripple out, transforming lives (yours and others').

Is there a perfect algorithm for picking winners? Nope—perfection's a myth in our messy human world. Conjectures evolve like Darwin's finches: Natural selection weeds out duds, variation sparks breakthroughs. So, constantly tweak your measuring stick. What seemed high-impact yesterday (e.g., crypto hype) might tank tomorrow. Stay agile.

The Exponential Payoff

Combine iteration with golden-mean explanations, and boom: Convex benefits. Your knowledge compounds, wealth snowballs, intelligence skyrockets toward infinity. It's not linear—one good conjecture unlocks ten more. Start small: Iterate on your morning routine with asymmetric bets (e.g., test meditation—low downside, unlimited calm and focus). Feel that gut hit? That's the shift from overwhelmed to empowered.

This isn't fluffy self-help; it's a blueprint for action. Next time life's chain feels incomprehensible, grab a segment. Tweak, explain, evolve. You'll not only get what you want—you'll inspire others to do the same. Intelligence isn't about being the smartest in the room; it's about winning the game. Go play. Your jackpot awaits.

Most people are stuck, it is your moral obligation to share this essay with them.

Forward it.

Subscribe to my newsletter to get more insights like these every week: https://crive.substack.com, or click the subscribe button on Hackernoon.

Cheers.