WHY "GIVING UP" IS SOMETIMES THE ONLY WAY TO WIN
- Juan Carlos Erdozain Rivera, MBA
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Imagine being a recent graduate, with your career hanging by a thread in the face of a multi-million dollar disaster that even international experts can't solve.
Discover the story of "Project Andromeda," where an industrial plant was generating 42% losses instead of profits. Through this crisis, you will learn a vital lesson for senior management:
🌀 The danger of "Brute Logic"
🌀 The Law of Reverse Effort
🌀 Profitable Wisdom
This isn't just an engineering story; it's a masterclass on how to quiet the mental noise and hear the profitable solution that's already there, waiting. Discover why, sometimes, the only way to win is to stop pushing.
THE PERFECT STORM
What I experienced at the beginning of my career at Resistol Industries was in a league of its own. Fresh out of Ibero, I found myself working in the shadow of a giant: Dr. Athef Chehata, an industry legend and Doctor of Chemical Sciences.
I had been assigned to "Project Andromeda," a multi-million dollar investment using cutting-edge technology brought from the United States to manufacture a resin essential to the tire industry. On paper, the formula was perfect. In reality, it was a financial disaster.
The plant was supposed to produce 75% usable resin, but we were only achieving a mediocre 58%. Almost half of the production (an alarming 42%) ended up as waste, industrial refuse. Management was furious, expert engineers were looking for culprits in molecular chemistry, and I, a novice on a freezing night at the Lerma plant in Toluca, felt like my career was over before it had even begun.
THE WALL OF LOGIC (THE SECOND GENRE OF KNOWLEDGE)
For weeks, I tried to be the "good engineer." I applied what the famous philosopher Baruch Spinoza would call the "Second Kind of Knowledge": Discursive Reason. I reviewed the thermal calculations, the pressures, the catalysts, step by step, piece of data. My brain worked overtime, pushing against the problem, trying to force a solution through pure intellect and the accumulation of information.
It was like trying to open a door by pushing when the sign said "pull." The harder I tried, the more confused I got. The logic in the American manuals said the gas should flow steadily for four hours. It had to work. But it didn't.
THE STRATEGIC SURRENDER
One winter night, with Christmas fast approaching, I went to the plant and reached my breaking point. I was exhausted, frozen, and defeated. Logic had failed me. "I can't take it anymore," I admitted to myself. "I've tried everything I know, and nothing works. If they're going to fire me, let them fire me."
At that moment, without realizing it, I activated the Law of Reverse Effort. I stopped pushing. I let go of the problem. My rational mind shut down from exhaustion. And it was then, in that mental silence where there was no more "noise" of data, that the insight occurred.
"INTUITIVE SCIENCE": KNOWLEDGE IS THE SHORTEST THING OF ALL
The aforementioned insight did not come as a complex mathematical formula, but as a simple and striking visual certainty: "It's not a chemical problem, it's physical."
The idea defied the technological handbook and the experts: "Forget constant flow. Feed it slowly at the beginning, accelerate fully later, and slow down at the end."
Years later, I came across a quote from Baruch Spinoza that perfectly explained what had happened that night : "True knowledge is the briefest of all ." Spinoza asserted that the highest form of knowledge (Intuitive Knowledge) requires no intermediate steps; it grasps the essence in a single stroke. While reason is slow and cumbersome, intuition is immediate and brief.
I had spent weeks on the long and complex road to finally find the shortcut in a second of surrender.
THE RESULT
We tested that "brief" and "illogical" idea. The result was devastating: Efficiency jumped from 58% to 94%. Waste fell to 6%. We had surpassed the original US technology not by working harder, but by daring to think differently.
A PROFITABLE LESSON IN WISDOM
In high-performance businesses, we are taught to overload ourselves with data. But true profitability often lies in simplicity. If your solution requires 100 pages of explanation, you're probably still stuck in Discursive Reasoning. Profitable truth almost always fits into a single sentence.
YOUR PROFITABILITY LABORATORY: THE SPINOZA METHOD
Premise: Complexity is often a sign of confusion. The truth (and the cost-effective solution) is brief.
Objective: To move from "Data Noise" to "Insight Clarity" using the methodology of brevity.
Instructions: Take that complex problem that has you stuck in your company and apply the Brevity Filter to it .
STEP 1: Saturation (The Reason)
Acknowledge that you already have the data. Write a long sentence outlining the technical or business problem you are trying to solve using pure logic.
The Long Problem:
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(e.g., "We need to recalibrate the algorithm because the retention KPI has dropped by 4% due to external factors...")
STEP 2: SILENCE
Spinoza suggests that error stems from a confused imagination. Remove the "embellishments." Cross out the adjectives, justifications, excuses, and fears from the previous sentence. Keep only the raw facts.
STEP 3: THE FLASH (SPINOZIST INTUITION)
Now, find the shortest possible solution. If you had to explain the solution to a 5-year-old in 3 seconds, what would you say? (No technical language allowed.) Stop thinking about "how to do it" and focus on "what it is."
The Short Solution:
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(Example: In my case, the solution wasn't a formula, it was: "Start slow, finish fast").
FINAL REFLECTION
Look at your "Short Solution." Does it feel light? Does it feel obvious now that you see it without the mental noise? If the answer is YES, you have likely touched on Intuitive Scientia. Implement it.
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