To break down means to turn it into a craft. But in general it’s almost impossible to describe the process in words; however humanity has found a few names for it. Those are aphorisms and the short two-, three-, four-line poems – for example, Japanese’ tanka. Here are a few sayings.

Most people think that a lecturer who teaches economics at the University is sophisticated and smart. A small business owner who earns 10-20 times is thought of as stupid and primitive. So far, the more it seems to me that the opposite is true. Teacher is often more limited and misguided, repeating someone else’s, often doubtful passages of truth.

Experience is more valuable than seven rules of wisdom.

Arabic saying

He’s a primitive craftsman; his work almost always lacks creativity. By contrast, a small shop owner is forced to solve new problems every day in a new, creative way, and those who haven’t solved one of those have long lost their asset.

I am also particularly touched by so-called experts from newspapers such as “Businessman Daily”. They are so smart that they should already be living on interest. But for some reason they still have to write their highly intellectual articles to earn the living. As you know, if you are able to give accurate predictions in at least 51% of cases, you need to run to the stock exchange at a breakneck speed or to the casino and immediately become a millionaire. Who wouldn’t pay a person who proves the accuracy of their predictions? Apparently, the expert’ predictions are justified in less than 50% of cases.

Perhaps the experts need to use the advice of the weather station’ guard who came to his manager and suggested that, since the accuracy of weather forecasts is 40%, they need to give predictions opposite to those of calculated ones, after which the accuracy of weather forecasts immediately would’ve jumped to 60%. But what do you do with highly scientific models and explanations of the causes of what is happening in the economy?

Let’s return to the knowledge and skills. The ability to do this or that consists of a large number of unseen subtleties and nuances. And because EVERYTHING depends on each of those nuances and how they interact with each other, it’s impossible to create a logical schema and convey everything with words. It’s a lot more effective to try and feel, to catch the state, dynamics etc. This is best done by observing the work of the Master and trying not to repeat it part by part, but all at once and as a whole.

A training system that is based on partitioning of the elements and then their synthesis dooms us to the level of the craftsman and deprives of the opportunity to become a Master.

You can become a Master without breaking a skill into parts, principles, techniques or methods and instead grasping the essence of the whole.

But how do you do it? I was going to state the laws and principles of finding strong moves in business (creativity in business) and yet came to the conclusion that it’s meaningless to break up into pieces such a phenomenon. Unlike machines, which can be disassembled into parts and then reassembled, it will not work with anything that’s alive. You may know what’s inside a dead body, but it won’t “work” anymore.

There is only one principle – the resource of an entrepreneur is the world around him.

Yes, it seems that this is a dead end. Any description or presentation of the ideas is a division of a phenomenon into its parts that are more and less important. But it is not so. There is no element more important or less important in the work of the Master. Well, if we’re talking about learning a trade which I’m not interested in at all since that’s what the universities and colleges are for

Craft suggests lack of creativity, a routine task. By contrast, a Master is performing a seemingly standard procedure always afresh, in an innovative way because each situation is unique. To the Master, the situation is full of novelty; to the craftsman it’s a habit. Master’s eye notices differences while craftsman’ – coincidences. Master’s world is ever changing; the world of a craftsman is repetitive.

How do you, in any situation, find strong moves, which give two, ten, hundredfold result? In order for this to become possible, one, above all, should start trying to look for such solutions. Secondly, there are principles, approaches, rules, techniques and methods that facilitate the finding of strong moves.

Finding strong moves is a creative challenge, but most authors report something vague like a formula they dreamed about, an apple that fell on Newton’ head, Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” and jumping naked from the bath, etc.

It all bears the same relation to the mechanisms of finding strong solutions which, for example, the color of a car has to the engine power. Correlations may sometimes be found, perhaps a car of one brand, with a certain engine, is painted in certain color, but it is not going to help and increase said engine’ power.

So what principles does the engine of creativity work on? Here we need to make a reference to two well-known approaches for finding strong moves – TRIZ, which has a slender theory of solving technical problems at the level of invention, and system analysis – an American thing without which they would not have sent astronauts to the moon and then brought them back.

So, let’s get started.

Resources of the entrepreneur are the entire world around him. That is, if you are targeting only at those resources (e.g. money) that you personally have, and you have $100 in your pocket, then, in order to earn ten thousand dollars, you, by an optimistic assessment will need five to ten years of investing that $100 and reinvesting the profits.

If you look over everything that is in your city, country, finally, in the world and then find 10-50 million dollars or much more in money or equity that is used inefficiently. And then you need to make an offer to the owner about how to use them smarter and negotiate the share of the profits you get.

He won’t agree, you might object – and rightly so, I say. Firstly, nobody immediately agrees on such proposals, and secondly, if you cannot convince the owner, then you do not deserve large sums of money.

How to convince people, especially owners, I will explain later, but herein lies the same problem as with the rest. Knowledge does not mean understanding, and even more so skills. Knowing the purpose of pedals, gear knob or the steering wheel significantly differs, or even more so has no connection with the ability to drive a car.

There are people who cannot explain how they are doing something, but can put on a masterful job. By contrast, a typical university teacher can go on and on about macroeconomics, marketing, management and cash flow but cannot create a small company with the profit of some 20 thousand dollars a month.

Those who can do it almost always do not know how they do it. Artists, writers, composers, entrepreneurs or communication masters are a great example.

Those who know but cannot do it – for example, teachers, academics, consultants, experts and journalists. And really, why should a teacher teach at a low wage and a consultant provide an advice if they can do that what they teach. They could be successful owners of businesses with an income of hundreds of times more that their current wage.

Let me repeat: it is a very harmful misconception that allegedly by means of lectures at the university, any of the courses to which a person goes to, you can get a skill to learn to do something. Students are taught to tell how to do something, that is, the teacher teaches what he knows, i.e. how to tell someone about some sort of process, and this is what the student learns.

These two areas – the knowledge and skill – are almost unrelated. They involve very different, rather the opposite, methods. What’s good for learning is bad for skills and vice versa.

But, somehow, learning almost always means acquiring new knowledge. Which, again, have almost no relation to skill. Almost nothing, but perhaps it does, you might say. Yes, it does – it stands in the way! A man who remembers how and what to do is not as effective as a man who has the skill but cannot explain.