Sir William Osler: A Way of Life
“No mind, however dull, can escape the brightness that comes from steady application.” *** In several of his speeches, Charlie Munger has referred to Sir William Osler, the Canadian …
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Forget The “To-Do” List, You Need A ‘Stop Doing’ List
It’s interesting to think about the things you want to accomplish in life and work towards those goals. This is, after all, what we’ve been taught to do since birth. But over time we …
French Nobility And The Origins of Modern Culture
Modern society tends to focus more on the lives of individuals, with all of their personal histories and own qualities. But it wasn’t always this way – the shift away from tradition and …
Charlie Munger on the Value of Thinking Backward and Forward
One of the five simple notions to solve problems is the concept of inversion. To solve problems we need to look at them both forward and backward. But how does this look in practice? Let me give you …
An 18-Minute Plan for Managing Your Day And Finding Focus
We start every day knowing we’re not going to get it all done or fit it all in. How we spend our time is really a function of priorities. That’s why Peter Bregman argues in 18 Minutes: …
The Role of a Critic
“In many ways, the work of a critic is very easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.” *** On the role of a …
Ruth Chang: How to Make Hard Choices
Ruth Chang is a philosopher at Rutgers University with an interesting background. After graduating with a J.D. from Harvard Law School and dipping her toe into the legal world, she went off to Oxford …
9 Habits You Need to Stop Now
Rather than read all of these self-help books full of things you should start doing to be more productive, it’s often better to look at what you should stop doing that gets in the way of …
Dan Gilbert: Why do we make decisions our future selves regret?
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” In the 7-minute TED talk (below), Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert illuminates some recent research on a …
Five Simple Notions that Solve Problems
In 1996, Charlie Munger gave a talk titled Practical Thought about Practical Thought, where he explained the success of Coca-Cola using the simplest, most fundamental mental models he could find. …
Warren Buffett on Scorecards, Investing, Friends, and the Family Motto
This website is named after a street located in Omaha, Nebraska. An amazing place, Omaha is famous for being the home of Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men. The headquarters of …
Charles Bukowski: An Argument Against Censorship
In 1985, staff at a public library, acting on a complaint, decided to to remove Charles Bukowski’s 1983 collection of short stories, Tales of Ordinary Madness, from their shelves. They declared the …
Avoiding Stupidity is Easier than Seeking Brilliance
The path to success often comes through avoiding major mistakes rather than pursuing brilliant moves. This isn’t about being passive – it’s about being thoughtful and disciplined …
The Art of Winning An Argument
We spend a lot of our lives trying to convince or persuade others to our point of view. This is one of the reasons that Daniel Pink says that we’re all in sales: Some of you, no doubt, are …
The Simple Problem Einstein Couldn’t Solve … At First
Albert Einstein and Max Wertheimer were close friends. Both found themselves in exile in the United States after fleeing the Nazis in the early 1930s, Einstein at Princeton and Wertheimer in New York. …
Stephen Cave: The Four Stories we tell Ourselves About Death
In a great interview with NPR, Philosopher Stephen Cave delves into the simple question: Why are human beings afraid to die? In answering Cave, the author of Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and …