Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard studied upward social and economic mobility in the United States and other countries for almost fifty years. He was looking for the reasons why some individuals and families moved up from lower socioeconomic classes to higher socioeconomic classes, generation by generation, sometimes starting at laboring jobs and

One of the simplest ways to do this is to continually ask, “How do we know this is true?” before we accept a piece of information as the basis for a decision.

Anaïs Nin wrote, “We do not see the world as it is, but as we are.”

His conclusion was simple and largely irrefutable. In diagnosing the economic success or failure of individuals, he concluded that “time perspective” was the overwhelmingly important factor. Banfield divided society into seven classes from the lowest to the highest: lower-lower class; upper-lower class; lower-middle class; middle-middle class;

Daniel Kahneman’s bestselling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, is a major contribution to accurate thinking. Similar to the classic Straight and Crooked Thinking by R. H. Thouless and C. R. Thouless, Kahneman’s book explores and explains many of the reasons why we come to false conclusions which lead to actions that fail to achieve the results we

As Winston Churchill said, “I long ago stopped listening to what people said. Instead, I look at what they do. Behavior is the only truth.”

There are two laws that trip people up all the time, in personal life, in politics, and in international affairs. They are the Law of Unintended Consequences and the Law of Perverse Consequences.

At the lowest socioeconomic level, lower-lower class, the time perspective was often only a few hours, or minutes, such as in the case of the hopeless alcoholic or drug addict, who thinks only about the next drink or dose. At the highest level, those who were second- or third-generation wealthy, their time perspective was many years, decades, even

They wrote that the greater clarity you have regarding where you want to be in the future, the easier it is for you to make correct decisions in the present.