Source: Wikipedia

Dear Diary,

We remind readers that we can’t reply directly to every piece of correspondence to the Diary. But we read everything that comes to us.

We’d like to reply, but often we don’t have a good answer to the suggestions, questions and complaints that come our way.

There are surely more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. If not, it’s a pretty sorry world.

We report what we see… what we think… and our guesses about what it means and where it leads. Sometimes right. Sometimes wrong. Always in doubt.

Today, we write about something that was hidden in our new book,Hormegeddon. Something hidden from the author, that is.

When you write a book you are supposed to be the master of your subject. That is especially true when you’ve practically invented the subject. But then, along comes someone who says:

“Don’t you see? You missed the most important point.”

Secret? What Secret?

When our colleague Porter Stansberry first wrote about the “secret” of the book, and how it was the secret to success, we were puzzled. We didn’t know what he was talking about. Secret? What secret?

We had merely noticed that public policies – pursued too ambitiously – were subject to a particularly nasty phenomenon, which we called “hormegeddon.” (A portmanteau word we came up with that blends the word “hormesis” – which describes when a small dose of an otherwise harmful substance has a beneficial effect – and the word “Armageddon.”)

We were so focused on this we failed to notice an even bigger and more important phenomenon – one that describes an important secret to success in individual lives and careers… and one that works in business and investing.

It is also the secret to civilization. Without it, civilization falls apart.

This secret was in plain view. But the book’s author – yours truly – had not noticed it. It took a clever reader to drag it out of the shadows and expose it to the light of day.