Name: Aristotle - How to Think Clearly & Achieve Anything
Uploaded: 2025-10-22T18:32:24.000Z
Duration: 9 min 33 s
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This video is going to be very interactive and incredibly useful.

So feel free to pause it, take notes and re watch sections whenever you need to.

Basic passive voice

This video was made possible by Brilliant, a math and science problem solving website that makes learning fun and rewarding.

Have you ever achieved something without knowing how you did it?

Or have you ever seen someone else achieve something, wondered how they did it?

In this video, based on the wisdom of Aristotle, I'm going to give you a step by step technique for understanding how to achieve anything.

I'll start with simple examples and build up to more complicated ones.

This technique is called cause and effect equations and we're going to start with a simple example.

I recommend taking out a pen and paper and following along because this knowledge truly will change your life.

To the left of the equal sign, write causes.

To the right of the equal sign, write effect.

The effect is the thing we want to achieve.

So let's erase effect and write cake on the right side instead.

And according to Aristotle, there are four types of causes that can explain any an efficient cause, a material cause, a formal cause, and

So let's erase causes on the left side and write out all four causes.

The efficient cause is the thing or person responsible for producing the effect.

So let's erase efficient cause and write baker.

The material cause is the list of ingredients required to produce the effect.

So let's erase material cause and write ingredients.

The formal cause is how you are supposed to combine the ingredients to produce the effect.

So we can erase formal cause, replace it with recipe and the final cause explains the purpose of the effect or why it happened in the first place.

In our case, that would be to satisfy our hunger.

So we can erase final cause and write hunger.

So by breaking the effect down into its four causes, the efficient cause, the material cause, the formal cause, and

the final cause, which are the baker, the ingredients, the recipe and hunger respectively, we understand how the effect of making a cake is achieved.

Breaking any effect down into its four causes allows us to understand how it can be achieved.

Now let's step it up one level of complexity.

This technique can also be applied to more complicated dreams such as building a business.

Lets write out the four causes again with successful business on the right side as an effect.

The efficient cause is the person or thing responsible for creating the successful business.

The material cause Is the list of ingredients required to create a successful business.

For now, we can write an in demand product or service.

The formal cause is the recipe that describes how the ingredients are put together to create a successful business.

In our case, we can write easily accessible, which means that the in demand service or product is put together in a way that is easy for the customer to access.

And the final cause describes the purpose the business was created for in the first place.

In our example, we can write to serve customers.

So when you get an entrepreneur who wants to serve customers with an in demand product or service that is easily accessible, you get a successful business.

Those are some decent insights, but we can take this to the next level by going even deeper.

Each of the four causes in the equation can be broken down further to get more insight.

Let's get more specific and choose an industry such as filmmaking.

We can put together a list of successful films and their makers and determine how they were made.

Let's start by erasing entrepreneur on the left side and writing filmmaker.

And let's erase successful business on the right side and write successful movie.

Now let's take a look at our efficient cause, the filmmaker.

We can gather a list of filmmakers who have made a successful movie and see what qualities they have in common.

For example, maybe they all work more than 40 hours a week, have college degrees and are willing to fail multiple times before giving up.

Now let's erase filmmaker from our formula and sub those three qualities into the brackets.

Now let's look at our material cause, an in demand service or product.

We can gather a list of all the best performing movies of the last few years and see what they have in common.

For example, maybe they're mostly superhero movies.

So let's erase in demand service or product on the left side and write superhero movie.

Now let's look at the formal cause easily accessible.

Again, we can gather a list of successful superhero movies and see how they combine all of their ingredients to see if there are any similarities.

So we can erase easily accessible and write hero's Journey.

And finally, let's look at the final serve customers.

By looking at our list of successful superhero movies, we can see similarities in how they serve their customers.

Maybe they all finish with a final battle between the hero and the villain where the hero just barely wins.

So we can erase serve customers and write journey to a battle where the hero eventually wins.

So putting that all together, we get if you take a filmmaker who is hard working, educated, and

resilient, who makes a superhero movie that follows the hero's journey, where the ultimate purpose is to build up to a battle between the hero and the villain, where the hero barely wins, you get a successful movie that would be a pretty powerful insight for less than 10 minutes of work.

And there are infinite levels of depth that you can go through here.

For example, we can take the material cause superhero movie and break it down further.

We can analyze our list of successful superhero movies and study how many characters they have, how many plot lines, how many heroes, how many villains, and

You can literally spend a lifetime putting together detailed equations on how to achieve anything.

So by gathering evidence and studying it using Aristotle's four causes, the efficient cause, the material cause, the formal cause, and

the final cause, we can form complex cause and effect equations that help us determine how to achieve anything.

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As always, thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.