mindsets

F. Scott Fitzgerald pens a beautiful 1933 letter to his daughter, which offers a timeless list of things to worry about and things not to worry about.

We all make decisions. Some of them are large and many of them are small. Few of us understand that the process we use to make those decisions is more important than the analysis we put into the decision.

Understanding your circle of competence allows you avoid problems. As we can learn from Warren Buffett, avoiding problems is easier than solving them.

The Kelly Criterion is a relatively simple math equation to determine the percentage of your bankroll you should bet on any given circumstance, assuming you have an advantage. The goal of the equation is this: don’t go broke. The equation tells you exactly how much to bet on each “hand” so that you

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards" — Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement

On Volitional Philanthropy (a short essay!) T. E. Lawrence, the English soldier, diplomat and writer, possessed what...

Despite getting rewarded repeatedly with promotions, compensation, recognition, and praise, I wasn't motivated enough to do another year.

You don’t need a will of iron to make real change in your life. The secret to hitting big creative goals is taking much smaller steps, much more often.

Last year was the first year I really forgot how old I was. This year was the year that I started doing stuff over again. Not out of nostalgia, or premature memory loss, but out of the sense that enough time had elapsed that it was time to revisit some things. I re-read books that I hadn’t touched in ten or fifteen years. I went back to places I hadn’t been since I was a kid. I re-visited some painful memories that I had walled off and chosen not to think about. So I thought this year, for my birthday piece (more than 10 years running now—here is 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32), I would revisit...

Here you are, stuck indoors, stuck somewhere you don’t want to be. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’re 17 going on 30. Maybe also you’re stuck because you’ve got another two years left on your enlistment or because you’re waiting for a position to open up at a new company. Or you’re stuck because there […]

A thought piece on what it takes to truly be great and what that even means in the first place.

The person who tells the most compelling story wins. Not the best idea. Just the story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads. Something can be factually true but contextually nonsense. Bad ideas often have at least some seed of truth that gives their followers confidence. Tell people what they want to hear and you can be wrong indefinitely without penalty. Woodrow Wilson said government “is accountable to Darwin, not to Newton.” It’s a useful idea. Everything is accountable to one of the two, and you have to know whether something adapts and changes over time or p...

Remember this mental model the next time someone upsets you.

On Needing to Find Something to Worry About - Articles from The School of Life, formally The Book of Life, a gathering of the best ideas around wisdom and emotional intelligence.

Charlie Munger, the partner of Warren Buffett, offers a practical two-step process for improving our thinking and making better decisions.

Ted Williams taught Warren Buffett that to improve the odds of making good choices, you must know your circle of competence and wait for the perfect pitch.

It's often easier to avoid stupidity rather than trying to be brilliant. Read this article to learn when to avoid stupidity and when to pursue brilliance.

The Founder and CEO of Social Capital, prominent figure in the venture capital business and part owner of the Golden State Warriors, Chamath Palihapitiya sits down with Shane Parrish to chat about what it means to be an observer of the present, how to think in first principles, the psychology of successful investing, his thoughts […]

I hang out around a lot of effective altruists. Many of them are motivated primarily by something like guilt (for having great resource and opportunity while others suffer) or shame (for not helping enough). Hell, many of my non-EA friends are primarily motivated by guilt or shame. I'm not going

All the weeks in a human life shown on one chart.

About two years ago, I went to an advertising conference in New York City. I was the youngest person in the room by far. The only one who wasn’t in a suit, wasn’t talking about vacation houses, about cars, wasn’t hoping to hook up with some other gross lonely person while away from home. I remember thinking very vividly at the time: this is the track I am on. Right now I am young but soon, soon I will be one of these assholes. I can’t express how much this shook me. I felt a kind of creeping dread that I would be absorbed into this crowd. That the things that were important to them would be...

Background This speech was originally delivered as the baccalaureate remarks to graduates from Princeton University on May 30, 2010. Speech Transcript As a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents on their ranch in Texas. I helped fix windmills, vaccinate cattle, and do other chores. We also watched soap operas every afternoon, especially “Days of […]

Whether you’re a student, a teacher, or a parent, I think you’ll appreciate this story of how one teacher can completely and permanently change someone’s life in only a few lessons.

Five landmarks to unlock your potential