Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
Billy Beane was put in the spotlight when Brad Pitt played him in the movie rendition of Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Sports fans, however, knew long before Moneyball that Beane was …
Michael Mauboussin, the first guest on our podcast, The Knowledge Project, explains how our situations influence our decisions enormously in Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition. …
Regression to the mean is a common statistical phenomenon that can mislead us when we observe the world. Learning to recognize when regression to the mean is at play can help us avoid misinterpreting …
This beautiful excerpt from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention beautifully illustrates why it’s so hard to pin down creativity and …
“Simple rules are shortcut strategies that save time and effort by focusing our attention and simplifying the way we process information. The rules aren’t universal— they’re tailored to the …
Our resistance to thinking about failure is especially curious in light of the fact that failure is so ubiquitous. ‘Failure is the distinguishing feature of corporate life,’ writes the economist Paul …
“The American dream is no longer just to get rich quick, but also to enjoy doing it, the new captains of industry offer various best-selling decalogue for achieving this goal. Their tips range from …
Comedian Drew Carey outsourced the development of his productivity strategy to David Allen, author of the cult classic, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, who “taught him …
As networks harness the wisdom of crowds, the ability of experts to add value in their predictions is steadily declining. This is the expert squeeze. *** In Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of …
“We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.” *** The most difficult of …
From Garrett Hardin‘s mind-blowingly awesome Filters Against Folly. In our highly technological society we cannot do without experts. We accept this fact of life, but not without anxiety. There …
Engineers use a unique mode of thinking based on seeing everything as a system. They see structures that aren’t apparent to the layperson, they know how to design under constraints, and they …
A passage from Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide explaining, in part, why it’s easier to describe what makes us happy than answer the question what is happiness. I can say that I’m happy …
This article is a collaboration between Mark Steed and myself. He did most of the work. Mark was a participant at the last Re:Think Decision Making event as well as a member of the Good Judgment …
I’ve come across this short story a few times recently but I can’t track down the origins. If you know the source please contact me. A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress …
If I could encourage you to look into one thing to think and focus better, Lodro Rinzler’s Sit Like a Buddha: A Pocket Guide to Meditation would be it. Rinzler walks us through 10 steps. Step 1 …