Our lives are full of decisions, and bad ones can lead to regret. New Scientist helps you make up your mind

In markets and life

“Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.” — Yousuf Karsh

David shares a compilation of the best links from his newsletter Friday Finds. Read here.

Plus! The Carbon Rally; The Bridge; Housing and Rates; Full Stack Media; Buying Out Contracts; Diff Jobs

An excellent work of philosophy exploring our underlying anxiety caused by the ultimate freedom afforded to us by modern living, and our desire to escape that freedom for a more comfortable life.

How to solve problems quickly and cheaply? Add more mental models to your thinking toolbox. Check the best mental models For problem-solving.

Peter Thiel asks this one question when he interviews someone to determine their future.

Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator, says he doesn’t have any extraordinary skills. He’s a pretty good artist. He’s kind of funny, an OK writer, and decent at business. But multiply those mediocre skills together and you get one of the most successful cartoonists of all time. A lot of things work like that. A couple ordinary things you don’t notice on their own create something spectacular when they mix together at the right time. One of the big leaps forward for humanity is when we mixed copper, which is soft, with tin, which is like paper, and created bronze, which is hard and made great tools and weapons. It was like two plus one equals ten. Same with the weather. A little cool air from the north is no big deal. A little warm breeze from the south is pleasant. But when they mix together over Missouri you get a tornado. Same with people. It’s tempting to want to find the one big skill that will set you apart. But most incredible things come from compounding, and compounding isn’t intuitive because the incremental inputs are never exciting on their own. A few little things that are easy to ignore yet work wonders when combined together: Curiosity across disciplines, most of which are outside your profession. A well-calibrated sense of your future regret. The ability to endure risk vs. assuming you can avoid it. Respecting luck as much as you respect risk. The willingness to adapt views you wish were permanent. Low susceptibility to FOMO. A sensitive bullshit detector. Valuing your independence over someone else’s priorities. Respecting history more than forecasts. Respecting the difference between rosy optimism and periods of chaos that trend upward. Quitting while you’re ahead before you’ve exhausted or outgrown what made you successful. Outperforming by merely “doing the average thing when everyone else around you is losing their mind.” Thinking in probabilities vs. certainties, including the idea that a good decision can result in a bad outcome and vice versa. Acknowledging that some things are unknowable and not fooling yourself into thinking you can figure them out. Identifying what game you’re playing and not being persuaded by people playing different games. Expecting the ridiculous and absurd vs. assuming the world is always governed by rational decisions. Accepting some inefficiency and hassle without losing your cool. Knowing the long-term consequences of your actions. Deserving the good reputation you have. Getting along with people you disagree with. None of these are too exciting, but maybe that’s the point: Most things that look like superpowers are just a bunch of ordinary skills mixed together at the right time.

It's the great everything and the great nothing.

The best game to play is the one that requires no scoreboard in the first place.

Listen now (12 min) | This week’s podcast (12 minutes) is on a crucial difference, between planning to start, and planning to finish. We talk a lot about the difference between more and less planning, on the spectrum between full waterfall and full agile, and like most of you, I share a bias towards less planning.

The author of "The Black Swan" and "Skin in the Game" on what it's like to have true financial freedom.

A summary of Carol Dweck's book Mindset, which explores our two mindsets (fixed and growth) and how they impact not only our attitudes and learning but also our outcomes.

Taking the leap is, in fact, a very rational thing to do. Here's why.

To fully embrace the joy of missing out and choose to do the things that make us happy, we need to better understand what’s driving our fear of missing out.

by Carrie Moyer A couple years ago I found myself drifting away from a close friend because I realized that he always made me feel weirdly… judged. Not in the sense that I did anything to upset him, but because it felt like he was always assessing everything around him to see if it conformed to his standard of good taste

If you open a roadside motel, expect that tired and demanding budget travelers will arrive. If you run a fancy restaurant, don’t be surprised if people will angle and cajole and lie to get a …

​ ​ ​ Wisdom for the end of the year Instead of a regular edition, here's a holiday special, featuring seven of the most powerful snippets I've added recently to my digital equi...

Listen now (10 min) | Abstraction & synthesis of the most transformative year of my life

Thiel defines secrets as important truths about the world that other people don’t yet realize.

The most liberating aspect for me of writing emails rather than tweets is the natural limit on topics I might be tempted to have a take on. When I was primarily writing tweets, I could easily involve myself in a dozen topics in a day. HERE'S A TAKE, THERE'S A TAKE, TAKE THAT! With email, it's a sliver of that. But it goes even deeper t...

The Paradox of Reading: The books you read will profoundly change you even though you’ll forget the vast majority of what you read. The Paradox of Writing: Great writing looks effortless. But because the ideas are so clear, casual readers don’t appreciate how much time it took to refine them. The Paradox of Creativity: Your

Watch on YouTube   Something that has always fascinated me is the concept of a Polymath or Renaissance Man, or a person who has many talents and knowledge in multiple domains. One of the modern day polymaths I’ve learned the most from is Josh Waitzkin. When it comes to touching excellence in multiple domains Josh... Read More

Six Spokes Theory shows that we can’t neglect important areas of life if we want to live optimally. This requires making tough choices

There’s a profound moment in Episode V of Star Wars in the midst of Luke Skywalker’s jedi training. After trying to get his ship out of the water with the force, Luke gives up (“I…

A summary of Paul Graham’s 200+ essays. This is an introduction to his ideas on startups, writing, society, decision-making and more.