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Authority Bias & Why There’s No Such Thing As A Stupid Question — 3 Comments

  1. Hi,

    We can all be an expert!

    At least that is what the Zulu principle tries to state.
    Jim Slater used Zulu principle for investing in the stock market, but the example is in anthropology.

    Jim Slater’s Zulu Principle best illustrates how the power of focus can lead to mastery and/or expertise in any given niche, topic, domain or field. This is the title of his financial investment book based on an insight he had as a result of his wife reading a four-page Reader’s Digest article on Zulus.

    He stated that if she had gone to the local library and borrowed all the available books on Zulus she could find then she would become one of the leading experts in their city on the subject. If she had traveled to South Africa and lived in a Zulu kraal for several months and studied all the literature on Zulus at a South African university then she would have gone on to be one of the top experts in the UK and possibly in the world.

    Slater believed that the more you focus on an area, then the easier it is to become an expert in that area. This expertise gives you a competitive advantage over others.

    Read the blurb: http://www.horebinternational.com/the-zulu-principle/

    • Thanks for the comment & I agree 100%.

      We can all be experts.

      That’s not really the point of this article though. Authority Bias is a (proven) tendency most of us have to afford [exaggerated levels of] authority often when it is not deserved and to fail to question authority when we sometimes should be, e.g. in Milgram’s experiment.

      But I do agree we can become experts in anything and these days more than ever if you are prepared to learn something and immerse yourself in that learning, the resources are easier to find than ever, just look at YouTube.

      Zulu principle could have been a good article for ‘Z’ as I was struggling for a moment but quite happy I went with Zen, ‘Zen in the Art of Archery’ was a really good read!!

      • p.s. I’d already heard of the Zulu principle & read the blurb you linked to but on 2nd thoughts it’s not something I would have really wanted to write about or align myself too much.

        Difficult to disagree with as focus is massive but to that extent that you invest so much time and energy over a sustained period in one thing – only if that’s what floats your boat. For me life is too short to be so concentrated on just one thing and I believe that we have enough capacity (in fact tremendous capacity) to learn a lot about a lot of different subjects.

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