Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe is on their thinking.
- View Highlight
-

What people present to the world is a tiny fraction of what’s going on inside their head.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The most prolific over-sharers disclose maybe a thousandth of one percent of what they’ve been through and what they’re thinking.
One thing this does is gives a false view of success. Most of what people share is what they want you to see. Skills are advertised, flaws are hidden. Wins are exaggerated, losses are downplayed. Doubt and anxiety are rarely shared on social media. Defeated soldiers and failed CEOs rarely sit for interviews.)
- View Highlight
-

It’s easiest to convince people that you’re special if they don’t know you well enough to see all the ways you’re not.
- View Highlight
-

Prediction is about probability and putting the odds of success in your favor. But observers mostly judge you in binary terms, right or wrong.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: When you’re in the middle of a powerful trend it’s difficult to imagine a force strong enough to turn things the other way.
What we tend to miss is that what turns trends around usually isn’t an outside force. It’s when a subtle side effect of that trend erodes what made it powerful to begin with.)
- View Highlight
-

Ignoring that people who think about the world in unique ways you like also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Kanye West once put it:

If you want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages, this crazy music, and this crazy way of thinking, there’s a chance it might come from a crazy person.)
- View Highlight
-

Andrew Wilkinson says: “Most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.”
- View Highlight
-

it’s so easy to ignore that fact when you admire someone. It gets dangerous when you admire a person for their good traits but start emulating their bad traits because you mistakenly believe that’s what made them great. That’s part of the saying, “Never meet your heroes.”
- View Highlight
-

We are pushed toward maximizing efficiency in a way that leaves no room for error, despite room for error being the most important factor of long-term success.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: There’s a weird quirk of human behavior that incentivizes people to maximize potential all the way up to destroying themselves.
So many people strive for efficient lives, where no hour is wasted. But when no hour is wasted you have no time to wander, explore something new, or let your thoughts run free – which can be some of the most productive forms of thought. Psychologist Amos Tversky once said “the secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” A successful person purposely leaving gaps of free time on their schedule can feel inefficient. And it is, so not many people do it.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Not the best idea. Not the right answer. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads.
Sherlock Holmes put it: “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”)
- View Highlight
-

Wherever information is exchanged – wherever there are products, companies, careers, politics, knowledge, education, and culture – you will find that the best story wins. Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure disease and go unnoticed.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: George Packer echoes the same:

The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up best to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires.
This drives you crazy if you assume the world is swayed by facts and objectivity – if you assume the best idea wins. But it’s how people think. And it’s actually optimistic, because when you realize you can change the world by explaining an old thing in a new way vs. creating something new, you start to see so much potential.)
- View Highlight
-

We are swayed by complexity when simplicity is the real mark of intelligence and understanding.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The sore truth is that complexity sells better.
Of course that’s the case.
A tweet can be more insightful than a book, but people pay $20 for books and would never pay a cent for thousands of tweets. Charge a client for ten sentences of advice and they’ll leave in disgust. Give them a phone-book-size elaboration and they’ll pay you a fortune and refer their friends.)
- View Highlight
-

Consumers of information rarely try to dissect an argument objectively; that’s too hard. When reading they just try to figure out whether the author is credible or not. Does this sound right? Does it pass the smell test? Has the author put more than a few seconds of thought into this argument? Length and complexity are often the only indication that an argument was thoughtful vs. a random gut feeling
- View Highlight
-

A third is that complexity gives a comforting impression of control, while simplicity is hard to distinguish from cluelessness. The more knobs you can fiddle with the more control you feel you have over the situation, because the impression of knowledge increases. Only paying attention to a few variables while ignoring everything else can make you look ignorant, even if it’s the right thing to do. If a client says, “What about this, what’s happening here?” and you respond, “Oh, I have no idea, I don’t look at that,” the odds that you’ll sound uninformed might outweigh the odds of indicating you’ve mastered simplicity.
- View Highlight
-

Your willingness to believe a prediction is influenced by how much you want or need that prediction to be true.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The documentary How to Live Forever asks that innocent question to a centenarian who offered an amazing response.
“Armistice Day,” she said, referring to the 1918 agreement that ended World War I.
“Why?” the producer asks.
“Because we knew there would be no more wars ever again,” she says.
World War II began 21 years later, killing 75 million people.
There are so many things in life that we think are true because we desperately want them to be true. People do this with their relationships, careers, investments, political views – anything forward-looking is subject to being swayed by your desire to have a pleasant life.)
- View Highlight
-

if you tell people what they want to hear you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty.
- View Highlight
-

It’s hard to empathize with other people’s beliefs if they’ve experienced parts of the world you have not.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The gap between how you feel as an outsider vs. how you feel when you’re experiencing something firsthand can be a mile wide.
There are theories that big wars tend to happen 20-40 years apart because that’s the amount of time it takes to cycle through a new generation of voters, politicians, and generals who aren’t scarred by the last war. Other political trends – social rights, economic theories, budget priorities – follow a similar path.
It’s not that people forget. It’s that empathy and open-mindedness cannot recreate what genuine fear and uncertainty feel like.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: A few questions everyone should ask themselves:
Which of my current views would I disagree with if I were born in a different country or generation?
What haven’t I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive to how something works?
What is a problem that I think only applies to other countries/industries/careers that will eventually impact me?)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: I would add my own theory: It’s easier to blame other people’s mistakes on stupidity and greed than our own.
That’s because when you make a mistake, I judge it solely based on what I see. It’s quick and easy.
But when I make a mistake there’s a long and persuasive monologue in my head that justifies bad decisions and adds important context other people don’t see.)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Similar to "don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
Perhaps this could be phrased like "don't attribute other's actions to greed or stupidity, given that you might have done the same yourself"
Related: Feynman's comment about "you (yourself) is the easiest person to fool"]

All behavior makes sense with enough information.
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Similar to "don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."]

(highlight:: The question, “Why don’t you agree with me?” can have infinite answers.
Sometimes one side is selfish, or stupid, or blind, or uninformed.
But usually a better question is, “What have you experienced that I haven’t that would make you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?”)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Instead of asking "why don't you agree", look inward and ask "why do I think differently?"]

It’s much easier, and common, to assume those who disagree with you aren’t thinking as hard as you are – especially when judging others’ mistakes.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The time, not the little changes, is what moves the needle. Take minuscule changes and compound them by 3.8 billion years and you get results that are indistinguishable from magic.
That’s the real lesson from evolution: If you have a big number in the exponent slot you do not need extraordinary change to deliver extraordinary results. It’s not intuitive, but it’s so powerful. “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function,” physicist Albert Bartlett used to say.)
- View Highlight
-

The gap between knowing what to do and actually getting people to do it can be enormous.
- View Highlight
-

If you think of your future self living in a new mansion, you imagine basking in splendor and everything feeling great. What’s easy to forget is that people in mansions can get the flu, have psoriasis, become embroiled in lawsuits, bicker with their spouses, are wracked with insecurity and annoyed with politicians – which in any given moment can supersede any joy that comes from material success. Future fortunes are imagined in a vacuum, but reality is always lived with the good and bad taken together, competing for attention.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The idea that incredible things happen because of boring statistics is important, because it’s true for terrible things too.
Think about 100-year events. One-hundred-year floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, financial crises, frauds, pandemics, political meltdowns, economic recessions, and so on endlessly. Lots of terrible things can be called “100-year events”.
A 100-year event doesn’t mean it happens every 100 years. It means there’s about a 1% chance of it occurring in any given year. That seems low. But when there are hundreds of different independent 100-year events, what are the odds that any one of them will occur in a given year?
Pretty good, in fact.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Steven Pressfield wrote for 30 years before publishing The Legend of Bagger Vance. His career leading up to then was bleak, at one point living in a halfway house because it had cheap rent.
He once spoke about the people he met living there:

The people in this halfway house, we used to hang out in the kitchen and talk all night long, were among the smartest people that I ever met and the funniest and the most interesting.

And what I concluded from hanging out with them and from others in a similar situation was that they weren’t crazy at all. They were actually the smart people who had seen through the bullshit. And because of that, they couldn’t function in the world.

They couldn’t hold a job because they just couldn’t take the bullshit, and that was how they wound up in institutions. The greater society thought, “Well these people are absolute rejects. They can’t fit in.” But in fact they were actually the people that really saw through everything.)
- View Highlight
-

If you recognize that BS is ubiquitous, then the question is not “How can I avoid all of it?” but, “What is the optimal amount to put up with so I can still function in a messy and imperfect world?”
- View Highlight
-

Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe is on their thinking.
- View Highlight
-

What people present to the world is a tiny fraction of what’s going on inside their head.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The most prolific over-sharers disclose maybe a thousandth of one percent of what they’ve been through and what they’re thinking.
One thing this does is gives a false view of success. Most of what people share is what they want you to see. Skills are advertised, flaws are hidden. Wins are exaggerated, losses are downplayed. Doubt and anxiety are rarely shared on social media. Defeated soldiers and failed CEOs rarely sit for interviews.)
- View Highlight
-

It’s easiest to convince people that you’re special if they don’t know you well enough to see all the ways you’re not.
- View Highlight
-

Prediction is about probability and putting the odds of success in your favor. But observers mostly judge you in binary terms, right or wrong.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: When you’re in the middle of a powerful trend it’s difficult to imagine a force strong enough to turn things the other way.
What we tend to miss is that what turns trends around usually isn’t an outside force. It’s when a subtle side effect of that trend erodes what made it powerful to begin with.)
- View Highlight
-

Ignoring that people who think about the world in unique ways you like also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Kanye West once put it:

If you want these crazy ideas and these crazy stages, this crazy music, and this crazy way of thinking, there’s a chance it might come from a crazy person.)
- View Highlight
-

Andrew Wilkinson says: “Most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.”
- View Highlight
-

it’s so easy to ignore that fact when you admire someone. It gets dangerous when you admire a person for their good traits but start emulating their bad traits because you mistakenly believe that’s what made them great. That’s part of the saying, “Never meet your heroes.”
- View Highlight
-

We are pushed toward maximizing efficiency in a way that leaves no room for error, despite room for error being the most important factor of long-term success.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: There’s a weird quirk of human behavior that incentivizes people to maximize potential all the way up to destroying themselves.
So many people strive for efficient lives, where no hour is wasted. But when no hour is wasted you have no time to wander, explore something new, or let your thoughts run free – which can be some of the most productive forms of thought. Psychologist Amos Tversky once said “the secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.” A successful person purposely leaving gaps of free time on their schedule can feel inefficient. And it is, so not many people do it.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Not the best idea. Not the right answer. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads.
Sherlock Holmes put it: “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.”)
- View Highlight
-

Wherever information is exchanged – wherever there are products, companies, careers, politics, knowledge, education, and culture – you will find that the best story wins. Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure disease and go unnoticed.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: George Packer echoes the same:

The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up best to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires.
This drives you crazy if you assume the world is swayed by facts and objectivity – if you assume the best idea wins. But it’s how people think. And it’s actually optimistic, because when you realize you can change the world by explaining an old thing in a new way vs. creating something new, you start to see so much potential.)
- View Highlight
-

We are swayed by complexity when simplicity is the real mark of intelligence and understanding.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The sore truth is that complexity sells better.
Of course that’s the case.
A tweet can be more insightful than a book, but people pay $20 for books and would never pay a cent for thousands of tweets. Charge a client for ten sentences of advice and they’ll leave in disgust. Give them a phone-book-size elaboration and they’ll pay you a fortune and refer their friends.)
- View Highlight
-

Consumers of information rarely try to dissect an argument objectively; that’s too hard. When reading they just try to figure out whether the author is credible or not. Does this sound right? Does it pass the smell test? Has the author put more than a few seconds of thought into this argument? Length and complexity are often the only indication that an argument was thoughtful vs. a random gut feeling
- View Highlight
-

A third is that complexity gives a comforting impression of control, while simplicity is hard to distinguish from cluelessness. The more knobs you can fiddle with the more control you feel you have over the situation, because the impression of knowledge increases. Only paying attention to a few variables while ignoring everything else can make you look ignorant, even if it’s the right thing to do. If a client says, “What about this, what’s happening here?” and you respond, “Oh, I have no idea, I don’t look at that,” the odds that you’ll sound uninformed might outweigh the odds of indicating you’ve mastered simplicity.
- View Highlight
-

Your willingness to believe a prediction is influenced by how much you want or need that prediction to be true.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The documentary How to Live Forever asks that innocent question to a centenarian who offered an amazing response.
“Armistice Day,” she said, referring to the 1918 agreement that ended World War I.
“Why?” the producer asks.
“Because we knew there would be no more wars ever again,” she says.
World War II began 21 years later, killing 75 million people.
There are so many things in life that we think are true because we desperately want them to be true. People do this with their relationships, careers, investments, political views – anything forward-looking is subject to being swayed by your desire to have a pleasant life.)
- View Highlight
-

if you tell people what they want to hear you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty.
- View Highlight
-

It’s hard to empathize with other people’s beliefs if they’ve experienced parts of the world you have not.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The gap between how you feel as an outsider vs. how you feel when you’re experiencing something firsthand can be a mile wide.
There are theories that big wars tend to happen 20-40 years apart because that’s the amount of time it takes to cycle through a new generation of voters, politicians, and generals who aren’t scarred by the last war. Other political trends – social rights, economic theories, budget priorities – follow a similar path.
It’s not that people forget. It’s that empathy and open-mindedness cannot recreate what genuine fear and uncertainty feel like.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: A few questions everyone should ask themselves:
Which of my current views would I disagree with if I were born in a different country or generation?
What haven’t I experienced firsthand that leaves me naive to how something works?
What is a problem that I think only applies to other countries/industries/careers that will eventually impact me?)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: I would add my own theory: It’s easier to blame other people’s mistakes on stupidity and greed than our own.
That’s because when you make a mistake, I judge it solely based on what I see. It’s quick and easy.
But when I make a mistake there’s a long and persuasive monologue in my head that justifies bad decisions and adds important context other people don’t see.)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Similar to "don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
Perhaps this could be phrased like "don't attribute other's actions to greed or stupidity, given that you might have done the same yourself"
Related: Feynman's comment about "you (yourself) is the easiest person to fool"]

All behavior makes sense with enough information.
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Similar to "don't attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."]

(highlight:: The question, “Why don’t you agree with me?” can have infinite answers.
Sometimes one side is selfish, or stupid, or blind, or uninformed.
But usually a better question is, “What have you experienced that I haven’t that would make you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?”)
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Instead of asking "why don't you agree", look inward and ask "why do I think differently?"]

It’s much easier, and common, to assume those who disagree with you aren’t thinking as hard as you are – especially when judging others’ mistakes.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The time, not the little changes, is what moves the needle. Take minuscule changes and compound them by 3.8 billion years and you get results that are indistinguishable from magic.
That’s the real lesson from evolution: If you have a big number in the exponent slot you do not need extraordinary change to deliver extraordinary results. It’s not intuitive, but it’s so powerful. “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function,” physicist Albert Bartlett used to say.)
- View Highlight
-

The gap between knowing what to do and actually getting people to do it can be enormous.
- View Highlight
-

If you think of your future self living in a new mansion, you imagine basking in splendor and everything feeling great. What’s easy to forget is that people in mansions can get the flu, have psoriasis, become embroiled in lawsuits, bicker with their spouses, are wracked with insecurity and annoyed with politicians – which in any given moment can supersede any joy that comes from material success. Future fortunes are imagined in a vacuum, but reality is always lived with the good and bad taken together, competing for attention.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: The idea that incredible things happen because of boring statistics is important, because it’s true for terrible things too.
Think about 100-year events. One-hundred-year floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, financial crises, frauds, pandemics, political meltdowns, economic recessions, and so on endlessly. Lots of terrible things can be called “100-year events”.
A 100-year event doesn’t mean it happens every 100 years. It means there’s about a 1% chance of it occurring in any given year. That seems low. But when there are hundreds of different independent 100-year events, what are the odds that any one of them will occur in a given year?
Pretty good, in fact.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Steven Pressfield wrote for 30 years before publishing The Legend of Bagger Vance. His career leading up to then was bleak, at one point living in a halfway house because it had cheap rent.
He once spoke about the people he met living there:

The people in this halfway house, we used to hang out in the kitchen and talk all night long, were among the smartest people that I ever met and the funniest and the most interesting.

And what I concluded from hanging out with them and from others in a similar situation was that they weren’t crazy at all. They were actually the smart people who had seen through the bullshit. And because of that, they couldn’t function in the world.

They couldn’t hold a job because they just couldn’t take the bullshit, and that was how they wound up in institutions. The greater society thought, “Well these people are absolute rejects. They can’t fit in.” But in fact they were actually the people that really saw through everything.)
- View Highlight
-

If you recognize that BS is ubiquitous, then the question is not “How can I avoid all of it?” but, “What is the optimal amount to put up with so I can still function in a messy and imperfect world?”
- View Highlight
-