Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness is the business philosophy handbook from the marketing, advertising, and PR firm Ogilvy & Mather. The book serves as a roadmap for the desired organizational culture at Ogilvy & Mather and clearly …
We make up stories in our minds and then against all evidence, defend them tooth and nail. Understanding why we do this is the key to discovering truth and making wiser decisions. *** Our brains are quirky. When I put my hand on a hot …
The filing cabinet of knowledge stored in Warren Buffett’s brain has helped make him the most successful investor of our time. But it takes much more than simply reading a lot. In this article, learn how to create your own “snowball effect” …
The best advice I’ve ever gotten about thinking came from a private-company CEO who has a thirty-year track record that’s up there with Warren Buffett’s. One day he said to me, “Shane, most people don’t …
Here’s an interesting passage from Anne Lamott, found in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, that requires some consideration. You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of …
The first thing they always do is tell you what they think. When someone has an opinion about everything, they want to share it with you. They often tout stats and research as if they had an imaginary checklist of facts they need to be able …
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” — Abraham Lincoln *** Your ability to think clearly determines the decisions you make and the actions you take. In Get Smart!: How to …
We think that we’re in control. We believe that our conscious mind directs our thoughts and somehow controls our subconscious mind. We’re wrong. In Richard Restak’s The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own: At the moment of …
“Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement.” —Claude M. Bristol *** One of the most controversial chapters in Brian Tracy’s book, …
In 1956 George Miller, a Princeton University psychologist, set out an important principle that you’ve probably heard of in a paper titled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.” Miller revived an observation made by Scottish …
“In the chronicles of American financial history,” writes David Clark in The Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway’s Vice Chairman on Life, Business, and the Pursuit of …
Many of us jump to negative conclusions rather than generous ones. Taking the most respectful interpretation of events changes how you see others and how they behave toward you. Consider this situation: You email a colleague with a …
“Books are never finished.They are merely abandoned.” — Oscar Wilde *** Why do great writers write? The question will never be answered only explored — in the context of culture, time, and ourselves. This is exactly …
“A speech is like a love affair. Any fool can start it, but to end it requires considerable skill.” — Lord Mancroft *** The structure of a great oral argument has been passed down through the ages, starting with Aristotle. Not …
“When information goes ‘in one ear and out the other,’ it’s often because it doesn’t have anything to stick to.” — Joshua Foer *** That’s a quote from the book Moonwalking with Einstein, the fascinating account of Joshua Foer’s …
“Biological thinking and physics thinking are distinct, and often complementary, approaches to the world, and ones that are appropriate for different kinds of systems.” *** How should we think about complexity? Should we use a …
You can use a big idea without a physics-like need for exact precision. The key to remember is moving closer to reality by updating. Consider this excerpt from Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner in Superforecasting The superforecasters are a …
(Purchase a copy of the entire 3-part series in one sexy PDF for $3.99) *** In the first two parts of our series on memory, we covered four major “sins” committed by our memories: Absent-Mindedness, Transience, …
One of my favorite studies of all time took the 50 most common ingredients from a cookbook and searched the literature for a connection to cancer: 72% had a study linking them to increased or decreased risk of cancer. (Here’s the link …
Philosopher Daniel Dennett shows us how to train your brain to think better in his book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Critical Thinking. Dennett, a pioneering thinker in cognitive and evolutionary science for over 50 years, has been …
We’ve covered the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) many times here before. He was a genius. A true genius. But there have been many geniuses — physics has been fortunate to attract some of them — and few of …
Legendary scientist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) was famous for his penetrating insight and clarity of thought. Famous for not only the work he did to garner a Nobel Prize, but also for the lucidity of explanations of ordinary things such …
At some time or another, we’ve all sought to make big changes. And almost of all of us have, after making grand plans, discovered that changing some aspect of our lives or organizations, whether adding in a new skill or simply …
One of the most common questions we receive, unsurprisingly, is along the lines of What one piece of advice would you recommend to become a better thinker? The question is kind of cheating. There is, of course, no one thing, and if Farnam …