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Sports

First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge

First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break …

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The Metagame: How Bill Belichick and Warren Buffett Play a Different Game

The metagame is playing a different game than your competitors. A game they can’t play. The metagame is a strategy that involves understanding the structural or unconscious reasons that things …

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Inside a Miracle: The 1980 U.S. Hockey Team

Few people know the details about one of the greatest stories in sports history. A classic David versus Goliath story that happened at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid when the U.S. Olympic Hockey …

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Why We Choke

In sports, ‘choking’ is when an athlete makes a major, unexpected blunder in a high stakes situation. Often, an expert who chokes will act like a clueless novice. Here, we examine why we choke and how …

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Billy Beane on Making Better Decisions, Challenging Entrenched Thinking, and Avoiding Biases

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 …

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What Can One of The Great Coaches of All Time Teach You About Leadership?

History will judge Bill Belichick as one of the greatest coaches ever. Not just in the NFL, where he coaches the New England Patriots, but in all of sports. He’s also incredibly smart. In his …

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