Situational Awareness in 2025
423: Mastering Situational Awareness in an Unstable World
Hi guys, good morning.
The last 24 hours dropped fresh evidence that the world is drifting into organized chaos — and the only edge left is raw situational awareness.
The only thing we really CAN do is attempt to forecast the future with a high degree of accuracy and react to changing narratives and data points as soon as we can.
The Israel and Iran situation has been changing every several hours — yesterday, President Trump posted on truth social saying that there would be peace after Iran executed what many considered to be a symbolic face saving missile attack on a US base in Qatar, several media outlets reported that this was telegraphed meaning that Iran had informed not only Qatar, but potentially also of the United States that these attacks were coming. In short, we're looking at a theatrical play war.
The US gets to take out Iranian nuclear facilities and support Israel and Iran gets to end up, saving some face on the world stage, not too dissimilar from what we've seen in the past with Iran.
The good news is with crypto and equities, strong bounces yesterday it appears that the market is removing a good deal of uncertainty from the short-term future. That is markets appear to be pricing in a conclusion to the conflict between Israel and Iran and the United States. Most prominently, at least for the moment oil is sending strong signals that traders and market participants do not expect us to be drawn out.
But more volatility is the only certainty.
Today we’re going to cover one of my favorite concepts.
In my quest to define the major differences between normies and people who “get it” there’s one theme that continuously comes up over and over again — and that is situational awareness or a lack thereof.
I actually think the dictionary definition of the term, is as close to expressing what Arb Letter’s main goal is for readers as I would be able to articulate myself:
Situational Awareness (noun):
The perception and understanding of environmental elements and events within a given time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. It involves being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact goals and objectives, both immediately and in the near future.
In plain terms: it’s knowing what’s going on around you so you can anticipate what might happen next and respond appropriately.
This letter’s main mission is exactly that: helping you see the pattern early, react quickly, and profit (or protect) when normies are frozen.
We can expand on this concept to apply it to markets, politics, or world geopolitics — while most people think of situational awareness as something you need to have at a gas station at 1am in the bad part of town, you can also effectively apply it to broader concepts to help you understand the world and where things are shifting:
To help you make more money
Help you get ahead of where business and technology are going
Help you achieve more mental peace and calm
Help you shed any naïveté or ignorance you have about the world
Ensure you, your family, and friends are safe and secure
Today we’re going to walk through a variety of topics that in my opinion, give excellent opportunities to employ situational awareness and track where things are headed. It doesn't even necessarily matter what your political opinion or biases you can look at these events and see objectively what they insinuate about what is coming.
Situational awareness in order to be most effective does require you to be 100% objective and real. If you're worried about being labeled as hateful, racist, a bigot, a doomer, a fear-monger, an extremist, dramatic, a charlatan, afraid or unstable — you will gain nothing from the exercise and suffer accordingly.
This is why the majority of people don't have it.
It's why the masses tend to move in this hive mind pattern whenever something major breaks like we saw during Covid. Nobody wants to fall out of line. Nobody wants to be considered the outsider.
Today I break down the biggest signals right now — from the Fed’s inescapable trap and Bitcoin’s stealth absorption, to the societal fault lines and indicators normies pretend aren’t there — and how you can position for it all.
Let’s get into it.
Situational awareness is simple: pay closer attention than most, objectively accept what you see, and act before comfort or fear talks you out of it. That’s it — but it’s rare in today’s society.