What does MALCOLM GLADWELL, the brilliant writer and thinker have to say about the financial markets? Nothing… but this ASTOUNDING observation from him has everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – to do with success in what could be a turbulent market. I’m Bryan Ellis. This is Episode 177.-----Hello, SDI Nation. Welcome to the podcast of record for savvy self-directed investors like you!It’s said if we don’t learn the lessons of history, we’re doomed to repeat them. Here’s a quick lesson NOT about investing… and completely about it all at the same time:“In the fall of 1973, the Syrian army began to gather a large number of tanks, artillery batteries, and infantry along its border with Israel. Simultaneously, to the south, the Egyptian army canceled all leaves, called up thousands of reservists, and launched a massive military exercise, building roads and preparing anti-aircraft and artillery positions along the Suez Canal. On October 4, an Israeli aerial reconnaissance mission showed that the Egyptians had moved artillery into offensive positions. That evening, Aman, the Israeli military intelligence agency, learned that portions of the Soviet fleet near Port Said and Alexandria had set sail, and that the Soviet government had begun airlifting the families of Soviet advisers out of Cairo and Damascus. Then, at four o’clock in the morning on October 6, Israel’s director of military intelligence received an urgent telephone call from one of the country’s most trusted intelligence sources. Egypt and Syria, the source said, would attack later that day. Top Israeli officials immediately called a meeting. Was war imminent? The head of Aman, Major General Eli Zeira, looked over the evidence and said he didn’t think so. He was wrong. That afternoon, Syria attacked from the east, overwhelming the thin Israeli defenses in the Golan Heights, and Egypt attacked from the south, bombing Israeli positions and sending either thousand infantry streaming across the Suez. Despite all the warnings of the previous weeks, Israeli officials were caught by surprise. Why couldn’t they connect the dots?”Those words come from the venerable Malcolm Gladwell – one of the most brilliant minds of our age – in his book called “What the Dog Saw”.So Major General Eli Zeira had absolutely every reason in the world to think that Israel WOULD be attacked by Syria and Egypt. Literally every single piece of evidence suggested that the attack was imminent and that Syria and Egypt were very serious. And let’s face it: Israeli intelligence has the reputation of being, shall we say, rather effective. But in this case – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary – Israel chose NOT to set up defensive positions in response to enemy movements, and the tiny Middle Eastern country suffered mightily for it.Why? Why did Major General Zeira make such a clearly WRONG decision in the face of overwhelming evidence to go the other way?Consider this: Do you know anyone who was hurt by the mortgage meltdown of ’07 and ’08? Maybe even you, yourself, took some serious shrapnel from that one.But have you noticed that… even though the financial carnage from that event was very, very widespread, affecting investors and the general public alike… almost nobody seemed to see it coming at the time… yet now, if you ask nearly anybody, they’ll tell you, almost derisively, that anyone with a brain could have predicted it?Yet… almost nobody did predict what happened. The few who did became billionaires.What we all recognized at the time was that something was wrong… something fundamental was not right… something that could be damaging to us all was happening. And yet… almost nobody had the good sense to get out of the real estate market or even better yet, figure out a way to bet AGAINST it.Does that make you and me foolish? I don’t think so.In fact, you may be tempted to think that Israel’s Major General Zeira was just careless or even foolish. But there’s far more to the story. At the time, it