Clear Thinking

While we can only guess why other people do what they do in poker or any other situation, our biggest blind spot tends to be knowing our own weaknesses. There’s a famous quote from Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

tip: The margin of safety is often sufficient when it can absorb double the worst-case scenario. So the baseline for a margin of safety is one that could withstand twice the amount of problems that would cause a crisis, or maintain twice the amount of resources needed to rebuild after a crisis.

safeguard: Evaluate the motivations and incentives of your sources. Remember that everyone sees things from a limited perspective.

the stop, flop, know principle: Stop gathering more information and execute your decision when either you Stop gathering useful information, you First Lose an OPportunity (FLOP), or you come to Know something that makes it evident what option you should choose.

Whatever decision you’re facing, ask yourself, “Is there a way to make sure I will stick to the path I’ve decided is best?” By thinking through your options, and precommitting to courses of action, you free up space to tackle other problems. Even if we’re waiting as long as possible to decide, we now know exactly what to focus on and do when the ti

Remember: Limiting ourselves to binary thinking before fully understanding a problem is a dangerous simplification that creates blind spots. False dualities prevent you from seeing alternative paths and other information that might change your mind. On the other hand, taking away one of two clear options forces you to reframe the problem and get un

the asap principle: If the cost to undo the decision is low, make it as soon as possible.

What’s true of maps is true of any other abstractions: by nature, they’re designed to serve the interests of their designers. If those designers don’t have the same interests as you, their abstractions aren’t going to give you the information you need. Similarly, any information you may get from a secondhand source has likely been filtered through

The people executing established practices say they want new ideas, but they just don’t want the bad ones. And because they so want to avoid the bad ones, they never deviate enough to find new good ones.