When it comes to making money, awareness is an extremely important skill.

There are two related concepts: one is consciousness, and the other is thinking.

Consciousness is a vague feeling. For example, if you were screwed over by a terrible partner in your last venture, your top priority for your next startup becomes avoiding bad partners—even more important than making money itself.

This is a business behavior driven by consciousness, not by thinking.

Awareness is the ability to step outside of your current emotions and vague feelings, to examine your mental state—to realize that you are operating from "consciousness" rather than "thinking."

Once you become aware, even someone without much experience will not let the priority of finding partners outweigh the priority of making money.

But when you lose the ability to think and just get lost in vague consciousness, you might make this kind of mistake 20 times a day.

Entrepreneurs should maintain a constant Socratic-style self-examination.