(highlight:: Something that’s built into the human condition is that people who think about the world in unique ways you like almost certainly also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.
It’s so easy to overlook, and it causes us to have poor judgment about who we should look up to and what we should expect out of very successful people.)
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(highlight:: Newton is probably the smartest human to ever live. But Keynes was astonished to find that much of the work was devoted to alchemy, sorcery, and trying to find a potion for eternal life.
Keynes wrote :
I have glanced through a great quantity of this at least 100,000 words, I should say. It is utterly impossible to deny that it is wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value; and also impossible not to admit that Newton devoted years of work to it.
I wonder: Was Newton a genius in spite of being addicted to magic, or was being curious about things that seemed impossible part of what made him so successful?
I think it’s impossible to know. But the idea that crazy geniuses sometimes just look straight up crazy is nearly unavoidable.)
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Something I’ve long thought true, and shows up constantly when you look for it, is that people who are abnormally good at one thing tend to be abnormally bad at something else. It’s as if the brain only has capacity for so much knowledge and emotion, and an abnormal skill robs bandwidth from other parts of someone’s personality.
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- [note::Is the performance of an individual like a normal distribution, where the X axis is different kinds of skills? i.e. For how extraordinarily good you are in one area, you're that much more likely to be exceptionally bad in another area.
This seems extremely reductive, but it's an interesting idea.]

People love the visionary genius side of Musk, but want it to come without the side that operates in his distorted I-don’t-care-about-your-customs version of reality. But I don’t think those two things can be separated. They’re the risk-reward trade-offs of the same personality trait.
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(highlight:: Reversion to the mean is one of the most common stories in history. It’s the main character in economies, markets, countries, companies, careers – everything. Part of the reason it happens is because the same personality traits that push people to the top also increase the odds of pushing them over the edge.
This is true for countries, particularly empires. A country determined to expand by acquiring more land is unlikely to be run by a person capable of saying, “OK, that’s enough. Let’s be thankful for what we have and stop invading other countries.” They’ll keep pushing until they meet their match. Novelist Stefan Zweig says, “History reveals no instances of a conqueror being surfeited by conquests,” meaning no conqueror gets what they wish and then retires.)
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(highlight:: Naval once wrote:
The part of the person that we envy doesn’t exist without the rest of that person ... One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn’t say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.
Either you want someone else’s life or you don’t. Either is equally powerful. Just know which is which when finding role models.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Something that’s built into the human condition is that people who think about the world in unique ways you like almost certainly also think about the world in unique ways you won’t like.
It’s so easy to overlook, and it causes us to have poor judgment about who we should look up to and what we should expect out of very successful people.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Newton is probably the smartest human to ever live. But Keynes was astonished to find that much of the work was devoted to alchemy, sorcery, and trying to find a potion for eternal life.
Keynes wrote :
I have glanced through a great quantity of this at least 100,000 words, I should say. It is utterly impossible to deny that it is wholly magical and wholly devoid of scientific value; and also impossible not to admit that Newton devoted years of work to it.
I wonder: Was Newton a genius in spite of being addicted to magic, or was being curious about things that seemed impossible part of what made him so successful?
I think it’s impossible to know. But the idea that crazy geniuses sometimes just look straight up crazy is nearly unavoidable.)
- View Highlight
-

Something I’ve long thought true, and shows up constantly when you look for it, is that people who are abnormally good at one thing tend to be abnormally bad at something else. It’s as if the brain only has capacity for so much knowledge and emotion, and an abnormal skill robs bandwidth from other parts of someone’s personality.
- View Highlight
-
- [note::Is the performance of an individual like a normal distribution, where the X axis is different kinds of skills? i.e. For how extraordinarily good you are in one area, you're that much more likely to be exceptionally bad in another area.
This seems extremely reductive, but it's an interesting idea.]

People love the visionary genius side of Musk, but want it to come without the side that operates in his distorted I-don’t-care-about-your-customs version of reality. But I don’t think those two things can be separated. They’re the risk-reward trade-offs of the same personality trait.
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Reversion to the mean is one of the most common stories in history. It’s the main character in economies, markets, countries, companies, careers – everything. Part of the reason it happens is because the same personality traits that push people to the top also increase the odds of pushing them over the edge.
This is true for countries, particularly empires. A country determined to expand by acquiring more land is unlikely to be run by a person capable of saying, “OK, that’s enough. Let’s be thankful for what we have and stop invading other countries.” They’ll keep pushing until they meet their match. Novelist Stefan Zweig says, “History reveals no instances of a conqueror being surfeited by conquests,” meaning no conqueror gets what they wish and then retires.)
- View Highlight
-

(highlight:: Naval once wrote:
The part of the person that we envy doesn’t exist without the rest of that person ... One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn’t say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.
Either you want someone else’s life or you don’t. Either is equally powerful. Just know which is which when finding role models.)
- View Highlight
-