Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
There are two types of people in the world: those who enjoyed mathematics class in school, and the other 98% of the population. No other subject is associated with such widespread fear, confusion, and even outright hatred. No other subject …
Describing something with accuracy forces you to learn more about it. In this way, description can be a tool for learning. Accurate description requires the following: Observation Curiosity about what you are witnessing Suspending …
Imagine it is a Saturday. You are in New York and decide to go to the Museum of Modern Art. There is a special exhibit on called The Artist is Present. Performance artist Marina Abramovic is sitting in one of the galleries. You wait in line …
Also known as the Precautionary Approach or Precautionary Action, the Precautionary Principle is a concept best summed up by the proverb “better safe than sorry” or the medical maxim to “first do no harm.” While there is no single …
Chess can serve as an apt metaphor for other areas of our lives, especially business. That’s because the game is a microcosm of the ways we use strategic thinking. There are not many areas where we can quickly assess the quality of our …
The OODA Loop is a four-step process for making effective decisions in high-stakes situations. It involves collecting relevant information, recognizing potential biases, deciding, and acting, then repeating the process with new information. …
The Feynman Technique is the best way to supercharge your learning. And it works no matter the subject. Devised by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, it leverages the power of teaching for better learning. Learning doesn’t …
Each month, Farnam Street members receive an exclusive chance to get personalized advice and answers to their burning questions from an expert guest. In 2020, we hosted “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions with guests from a wide …
When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, passions can run high and cloud our judgment. Learn how mental models can help you see clearly from this real-life scenario. *** Mental models can sometimes come off as an abstract concept. …
If life is a game, how do you play it? The answer will have a huge impact on your choices, your satisfaction, and how you achieve success. *** James Carse, the Director of Religious Studies at New York University, wrote a book, Finite and …
“The biggest mistake we make about scarcity is we view it as a physical phenomenon. It’s not.” We’re busier than ever. The typical inbox is perpetually swelling with messages awaiting attention. Meetings need to be rescheduled because …
I was recently interviewed in Forbes. Shane Parrish is on a mission to make you think, and think better. With over 30,000 subscribers — and that number growing quickly — Shane runs Farnam Street, an intellectual hub of curated …
This is a continuation of two types of ignorance. You can’t deal with ignorance if you can’t recognize its presence. If you’re suffering from primary ignorance, it means you probably failed to consider the possibility of …
I’ve been thinking about this ever since someone sent me Lyza’s beautiful article Never Heard of It. Not long before, I had started noticing a habit I had, a tendency to nod or make vague assentive noises when people around me …
“Friendships are the least institutionalized and most voluntary social relationship we have.” In Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are, Carlin Flora explores “the powerful and often unappreciated …
In Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman, sets out to “get clear about ‘who we are’ as social creatures and to reveal how a more accurate understanding of our social nature can …
Canadian filmmaker Reid Gower created the Feynman Series, a trilogy of physicist Richard Feynman’s penetrating insight into domains outside of physics. Consider the first, Richard Feynman on Beauty. Honours, the second part, shows …
Some advice from Marcus Aurelius in Meditations: Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don’t gussy up your thoughts. No surplus words or unnecessary actions. Let the spirit in you represent …
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” — Victor Hugo France of the 1790s provided an ideal place for Napoleon Bonaparte’s unlikely rise to the top. Paul Johnson explains in Napoleon: A Life: It …
The more I dig into Ogilvy the more curious I get. How could you not fall in love with a man who wrote, “We have a habit of divine discontent with our performance. It is an antidote to smugness.” In 1984 Ogilvy was asked by his …
In New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change, Winifred Gallagher writes: [O]ur fast-paced world invites us to see ourselves in yet another light—this time as nature’s virtuosos of change, who are biologically as well as …
Albert Einstein, writing to fellow physicist Hendrik Lorentz in 1915, describes how a scientist gets things wrong: 1. The devil leads him by the nose with a false hypothesis. (For this he deserves our pity.) 2. His arguments are erroneous …
Analytical reading is the fourth part in my series on ways to improve our reading skills. The first rule of analytical reading is that you must know what kind of book you are reading. Are you reading a novel, a play, or is it some sort of …