《Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results》读书笔记#
作者: Shane Parrish
阅读时长: 3 小时
这是我在微信读书中阅读《Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results》时记录的笔记和摘录。
简介：平凡时刻清晰思维的力量 - Introduction: The Power of Clear Thinking in Ordinary Moments#
No one tries to win the moment at the expense of the decade, and yet that is often how it goes.
A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.
It doesn’t matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today.
No one tries to win the moment at the expense of the decade, and yet that is often how it goes.
A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances.
It doesn’t matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today.
第 1.3 章：自我默认 - Chapter 1.3: The Ego Default#
Confidence doesn’t make bad outcomes any less likely or good outcomes more likely, it only blinds us to risk. The ego also makes us more concerned with maintaining or improving our perceived position in a social hierarchy than with extending our knowledge or skills.
Our desire to feel right overpowers our desire to be right.
Confidence doesn’t make bad outcomes any less likely or good outcomes more likely, it only blinds us to risk. The ego also makes us more concerned with maintaining or improving our perceived position in a social hierarchy than with extending our knowledge or skills.
Our desire to feel right overpowers our desire to be right.
第 1.4 章：社会违约 - Chapter 1.4: The Social Default#
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
So while there is sometimes embedded wisdom in the crowd, mistaking the comfort of the collective for evidence that what you’re doing is going to lead to better results is the social default’s big lie.
Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely.
As legendary investor Warren Buffett pointed out, though, “The fact that other people agree or disagree with you makes you neither right nor wrong. You will be right if your facts and reasoning are correct.”
Lou Brock might have put it best when he said, “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” In other words, someone who’s possessed by the social default is easy to defeat.
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
So while there is sometimes embedded wisdom in the crowd, mistaking the comfort of the collective for evidence that what you’re doing is going to lead to better results is the social default’s big lie.
Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely.
As legendary investor Warren Buffett pointed out, though, “The fact that other people agree or disagree with you makes you neither right nor wrong. You will be right if your facts and reasoning are correct.”
Lou Brock might have put it best when he said, “Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.” In other words, someone who’s possessed by the social default is easy to defeat.
第 1.5 章：惯性默认 - Chapter 1.5: The Inertia Default#
Inertia keeps us in jobs we hate and in relationships that don’t make us happy, because in both cases we know what to expect and it’s comforting to have our expectations reliably met.
Another reason we tend to push back against change is that doing something different might lead to worse results. There is an asymmetry to change—we take negative results to heart more than positive ones. Worse results make us stand out for the wrong reasons. Why risk looking like an idiot when you can remain average? We’d rather be average than risk the possibility of landing somewhere below average.
Inertia also prevents us from doing hard things. The longer we avoid the hard thing we know we should do, the harder it becomes to do. Avoiding conflict is comfortable and easy. The longer we avoid the conflict, however, the more necessary it becomes to continue avoiding it.
Groups create inertia of their own. They tend to value consistency over effectiveness, and reward people for maintaining the status quo. Inertia makes deviating from group norms difficult. The threat of standing out in a negative way too often keeps people in line. As a result, group dynamics end up favoring people who don’t deviate from the defaults.
Inertia keeps us in jobs we hate and in relationships that don’t make us happy, because in both cases we know what to expect and it’s comforting to have our expectations reliably met.
Another reason we tend to push back against change is that doing something different might lead to worse results. There is an asymmetry to change—we take negative results to heart more than positive ones. Worse results make us stand out for the wrong reasons. Why risk looking like an idiot when you can remain average? We’d rather be average than risk the possibility of landing somewhere below average.
Inertia also prevents us from doing hard things. The longer we avoid the hard thing we know we should do, the harder it becomes to do. Avoiding conflict is comfortable and easy. The longer we avoid the conflict, however, the more necessary it becomes to continue avoiding it.
Groups create inertia of their own. They tend to value consistency over effectiveness, and reward people for maintaining the status quo. Inertia makes deviating from group norms difficult. The threat of standing out in a negative way too often keeps people in line. As a result, group dynamics end up favoring people who don’t deviate from the defaults.
第 1.6 章：默认为清晰 - Chapter 1.6: Default to Clarity#
A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.
The way to improve your defaults isn’t by willpower but by creating an intentional environment where your desired behavior becomes the default behavior.
A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.
The way to improve your defaults isn’t by willpower but by creating an intentional environment where your desired behavior becomes the default behavior.
第 2.1 章：自我问责 - Chapter 2.1: Self-Accountability#
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be.
No one cares about your excuses as much as you do. In fact, no one cares about your excuses at all, except you.
When circumstances are easy, it’s hard to distinguish ordinary people from extraordinary ones, or to see the extraordinary within ourselves. As the Roman slave Publilius Syrus once said, “Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”
The lesson was an important one: the things you choose not to do often matter as much as the things you choose to do. The real test of a person is the degree to which they are willing to nonconform to do the right thing.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be.
No one cares about your excuses as much as you do. In fact, no one cares about your excuses at all, except you.
When circumstances are easy, it’s hard to distinguish ordinary people from extraordinary ones, or to see the extraordinary within ourselves. As the Roman slave Publilius Syrus once said, “Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”
The lesson was an important one: the things you choose not to do often matter as much as the things you choose to do. The real test of a person is the degree to which they are willing to nonconform to do the right thing.
第 2.2 章：自我认识 - Chapter 2.2: Self-Knowledge#
“The key to successful investing is to know what you know and stick to it.”
“When you play games where other people have the aptitude and you don’t, you’re going to lose. You have to figure out where you have an edge and stick to it.”
“The key to successful investing is to know what you know and stick to it.”
“When you play games where other people have the aptitude and you don’t, you’re going to lose. You have to figure out where you have an edge and stick to it.”
第 2.4 章：自信 - Chapter 2.4: Self-Confidence#
Self-confidence is also the strength to accept hard truths. We all have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. The quicker you stop denying inconvenient truths and start responding to difficult realities, the better.
“They’re too focused on proving they’re right instead of being right,” he said.
Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. It’s the strength to face reality. It’s the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right.
Outcome over ego.
Self-confidence is also the strength to accept hard truths. We all have to deal with the world as it is, not as we want it to be. The quicker you stop denying inconvenient truths and start responding to difficult realities, the better.
“They’re too focused on proving they’re right instead of being right,” he said.
Self-confidence is the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. It’s the strength to face reality. It’s the strength to admit mistakes, and the strength to change your mind. Self-confidence is what it takes to be on the right side of right.
Outcome over ego.
第 2.6 章：制定标准 - Chapter 2.6: Setting the Standards#
Champions don’t create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions.
Champions don’t create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions.
第 2.7 章：示例 + 实践 - Chapter 2.7: Exemplars + Practice#
As Peter Kaufman once told me, “No technique has been more responsible for my success in life than studying and adopting the good models of others.”
Seneca captured the right approach when he said in On the Tranquility of the Mind, “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.” Or, as Cato the Elder put it, “Be careful not to rashly refuse to learn from others.”[3] Don’t throw away the apple because of a bruise on the skin.
The only person you’re competing with is the person you were yesterday. Victory is being a little better today.
As Seneca said, “Happy is he who can improve others not just when he is in their presence, but even when he is in their thoughts!”
Strengths of character result from habit. . . . We acquire them just as we acquire skills . . . we become builders, for instance, by building, and we become harpists by playing the harp. So too we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.
As Peter Kaufman once told me, “No technique has been more responsible for my success in life than studying and adopting the good models of others.”
Seneca captured the right approach when he said in On the Tranquility of the Mind, “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.” Or, as Cato the Elder put it, “Be careful not to rashly refuse to learn from others.”[3] Don’t throw away the apple because of a bruise on the skin.
The only person you’re competing with is the person you were yesterday. Victory is being a little better today.
As Seneca said, “Happy is he who can improve others not just when he is in their presence, but even when he is in their thoughts!”
Strengths of character result from habit. . . . We acquire them just as we acquire skills . . . we become builders, for instance, by building, and we become harpists by playing the harp. So too we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.
第 3 部分：管理弱点 - Part 3: Managing Weakness#
Life gets easier when you don’t blame other people and focus on what you can control.
Life gets easier when you don’t blame other people and focus on what you can control.
第 3.1 章：了解自己的弱点 - Chapter 3.1: Knowing Your Weaknesses#
While we can only guess why other people do what they do in poker or any other situation, our biggest blind spot tends to be knowing our own weaknesses. There’s a famous quote from Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
There is a gap in our thinking that comes from believing that the way we see the world is the way the world really works. It’s only when we change our perspective—when we look at the situation through the eyes of other people—that we realize what we’re missing. We begin to appreciate our own blind spots and see what we’ve been missing.
While we can only guess why other people do what they do in poker or any other situation, our biggest blind spot tends to be knowing our own weaknesses. There’s a famous quote from Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
There is a gap in our thinking that comes from believing that the way we see the world is the way the world really works. It’s only when we change our perspective—when we look at the situation through the eyes of other people—that we realize what we’re missing. We begin to appreciate our own blind spots and see what we’ve been missing.
第 3.2 章：通过保护措施保护自己 - Chapter 3.2: Protecting Yourself with Safeguards#
In my conversation with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, the godfather of cognitive biases and thinking errors, he revealed an unexpected way we can improve our judgment: replacing decisions with rules.[2] It turns out that rules can help us automate our behavior to put us in a position to achieve success and accomplish our goals.
If there were a recipe for accumulated disaster, it would be giving the best of ourselves to the least important things and the worst of ourselves to the most important things.
In my conversation with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, the godfather of cognitive biases and thinking errors, he revealed an unexpected way we can improve our judgment: replacing decisions with rules.[2] It turns out that rules can help us automate our behavior to put us in a position to achieve success and accomplish our goals.
If there were a recipe for accumulated disaster, it would be giving the best of ourselves to the least important things and the worst of ourselves to the most important things.
第 3.3 章：如何处理错误 - Chapter 3.3: How to Handle Mistakes#
The biggest mistake people make typically isn’t their initial mistake. It’s the mistake of trying to cover up and avoid responsibility for it. The first mistake is expensive; the second one costs a fortune.
There are three problems with covering up mistakes. The first is that you can’t learn if you ignore your mistakes. The second is that hiding them becomes a habit. The third is that the cover-up makes a bad situation worse.
Mistakes turn into anchors if you don’t accept them. Part of accepting them is learning from them and then letting them go. We can’t change the past, but we can work to undo the effects it’s had on the future.
The most powerful story in the world is the one you tell yourself. That inner voice has the power to move you forward or anchor you to the past. Choose wisely.
The biggest mistake people make typically isn’t their initial mistake. It’s the mistake of trying to cover up and avoid responsibility for it. The first mistake is expensive; the second one costs a fortune.
There are three problems with covering up mistakes. The first is that you can’t learn if you ignore your mistakes. The second is that hiding them becomes a habit. The third is that the cover-up makes a bad situation worse.
Mistakes turn into anchors if you don’t accept them. Part of accepting them is learning from them and then letting them go. We can’t change the past, but we can work to undo the effects it’s had on the future.
The most powerful story in the world is the one you tell yourself. That inner voice has the power to move you forward or anchor you to the past. Choose wisely.
第 4 部分：决策：行动中的清晰思维 - Part 4: Decisions: Clear Thinking in Action#
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
the outside observer, it might look like inaction. But inaction is a choice.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
If you can’t keep those in check—if you’re easily swayed by emotion, if you can’t adapt to change, if you value being right more than doing what’s best—then all the tools in the world aren’t going to help you. The defaults will overwhelm you, rout your decision-making process, and seize control of your life.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
the outside observer, it might look like inaction. But inaction is a choice.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
If you can’t keep those in check—if you’re easily swayed by emotion, if you can’t adapt to change, if you value being right more than doing what’s best—then all the tools in the world aren’t going to help you. The defaults will overwhelm you, rout your decision-making process, and seize control of your life.
第 4.1 章：定义问题 - Chapter 4.1: Define the Problem#
An apocryphal quote often attributed to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein sums up this idea: “To understand is to know what to do.”
Short-term solutions might make sense in the moment, but they never win in the long term. You feel like you’re moving forward when you’re actually just going in circles. People gravitate toward them because finding a short-term fix signals to others that they’re doing something. That’s the social default at work. It fools people into mistaking action for progress, the loudest voice for the right one, and confidence for competence. Time eventually reveals short-term solutions to be Band-Aids that cover deeper problems. Don’t be fooled!
An apocryphal quote often attributed to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein sums up this idea: “To understand is to know what to do.”
Short-term solutions might make sense in the moment, but they never win in the long term. You feel like you’re moving forward when you’re actually just going in circles. People gravitate toward them because finding a short-term fix signals to others that they’re doing something. That’s the social default at work. It fools people into mistaking action for progress, the loudest voice for the right one, and confidence for competence. Time eventually reveals short-term solutions to be Band-Aids that cover deeper problems. Don’t be fooled!
第 4.2 章：探索可能的解决方案 - Chapter 4.2: Explore Possible Solutions#
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Most of the time, though, this type of thinking is limiting. Some decisions might seem to come down to a choice between this or that, but there’s often another option. The best decision-makers know this, and see binary thinking as a sign that we don’t fully understand a problem—that we’re trying to reduce the problem’s dimensions before fully understanding them.
Masters see the simplicity hiding in the complexity. As Frederic Maitland purportedly once wrote, “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” When we reduce the problem to black-and-white solutions, we need to check to make sure we’re the master and not the novice.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
Most of the time, though, this type of thinking is limiting. Some decisions might seem to come down to a choice between this or that, but there’s often another option. The best decision-makers know this, and see binary thinking as a sign that we don’t fully understand a problem—that we’re trying to reduce the problem’s dimensions before fully understanding them.
Masters see the simplicity hiding in the complexity. As Frederic Maitland purportedly once wrote, “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” When we reduce the problem to black-and-white solutions, we need to check to make sure we’re the master and not the novice.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
Chapter 4.2: Explore Possible Solutions, Clear Thinking_1#
Charlie Munger put it this way: “Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs . . . it’s your alternatives that matter. That’s how we make all of our decisions.”
Many people focus solely on what they stand to gain by choosing an option and forget to factor in what they stand to lose by forgoing another. But the ability to size up these costs is one of the things that separates great decision-makers from the rest.
Charlie Munger put it this way: “Intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs . . . it’s your alternatives that matter. That’s how we make all of our decisions.”
Many people focus solely on what they stand to gain by choosing an option and forget to factor in what they stand to lose by forgoing another. But the ability to size up these costs is one of the things that separates great decision-makers from the rest.
第 4.3 章：评估选项 - Chapter 4.3: Evaluate the Options#
The problem here is that in many cases, purely negative criteria aren’t decisive: they don’t narrow the field of options down to one. As a result, people end up leaving the ultimate choice up to chance or circumstance. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.”
“As long as they make a decision based on the most important thing, they won’t be wrong.” He paused, then said slowly, “A lot of people reach their ceiling in this job because they can’t figure out this one thing.”
The third lesson was perhaps the most revealing: I myself didn’t know what the most important thing was. That’s why I couldn’t tell them.
If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re unlikely to find it, just as you’re unlikely to hit the target if you don’t know what you’re aiming at. When you don’t know what’s important, you miss things that are relevant and spend a lot of time on things that are irrelevant.
You lack understanding, and information without understanding is dangerous.
It’s natural to think these abstractions will save us time and improve our decision-making, but in many cases they don’t. Reading a summary might be faster than reading a full document, but it misses a lot of details—details that weren’t relevant to the person summarizing the information, but that might be relevant to you. You end up saving time at the cost of missing important information. Skimming inadvertently creates blind spots.
Real knowledge is earned, while abstractions are merely borrowed.
History shows that the greatest thinkers all used information that they collected personally. They earned their knowledge the hard way either in the trenches of experience or through careful study of exemplars. They looked for raw, unfiltered information, and ventured out into the world to interact with it directly.
What’s true of maps is true of any other abstractions: by nature, they’re designed to serve the interests of their designers. If those designers don’t have the same interests as you, their abstractions aren’t going to give you the information you need. Similarly, any information you may get from a secondhand source has likely been filtered through that source’s interests. Since your interests are likely different from theirs, their summaries, highlights, and descriptions are likely to leave out relevant information that could help you with your decision.
The problem here is that in many cases, purely negative criteria aren’t decisive: they don’t narrow the field of options down to one. As a result, people end up leaving the ultimate choice up to chance or circumstance. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.”
“As long as they make a decision based on the most important thing, they won’t be wrong.” He paused, then said slowly, “A lot of people reach their ceiling in this job because they can’t figure out this one thing.”
The third lesson was perhaps the most revealing: I myself didn’t know what the most important thing was. That’s why I couldn’t tell them.
If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re unlikely to find it, just as you’re unlikely to hit the target if you don’t know what you’re aiming at. When you don’t know what’s important, you miss things that are relevant and spend a lot of time on things that are irrelevant.
You lack understanding, and information without understanding is dangerous.
It’s natural to think these abstractions will save us time and improve our decision-making, but in many cases they don’t. Reading a summary might be faster than reading a full document, but it misses a lot of details—details that weren’t relevant to the person summarizing the information, but that might be relevant to you. You end up saving time at the cost of missing important information. Skimming inadvertently creates blind spots.
Real knowledge is earned, while abstractions are merely borrowed.
History shows that the greatest thinkers all used information that they collected personally. They earned their knowledge the hard way either in the trenches of experience or through careful study of exemplars. They looked for raw, unfiltered information, and ventured out into the world to interact with it directly.
What’s true of maps is true of any other abstractions: by nature, they’re designed to serve the interests of their designers. If those designers don’t have the same interests as you, their abstractions aren’t going to give you the information you need. Similarly, any information you may get from a secondhand source has likely been filtered through that source’s interests. Since your interests are likely different from theirs, their summaries, highlights, and descriptions are likely to leave out relevant information that could help you with your decision.
第 4.4 章：去做吧！ - Chapter 4.4: Do It!#
When the cost of failure is cheap, the speed at which you come to a decision matters as much as the decision itself. When failure is expensive, it makes sense to learn more before taking action.
“The trouble with too much information,” Robinson told me, “is you can’t reason with it.” It only feeds confirmation bias. We ignore additional information that doesn’t agree with our assessment, and gain confidence from additional information that does.
When the cost of failure is cheap, the speed at which you come to a decision matters as much as the decision itself. When failure is expensive, it makes sense to learn more before taking action.
“The trouble with too much information,” Robinson told me, “is you can’t reason with it.” It only feeds confirmation bias. We ignore additional information that doesn’t agree with our assessment, and gain confidence from additional information that does.
第 4.5 章：安全边际 - Chapter 4.5: Margin of Safety#
When failure is expensive, it’s worth investing in large margins of safety.
A margin of safety is a buffer between what you expect to happen and what could happen. It’s designed to save you when surprises are expensive.
Warren Buffett has a saying that I often come back to: “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”[1] The thing is, most of us rarely know what we are doing with the confidence required to go all in. When you don’t know what you are doing, a margin of safety saves you from the worst outcomes. Even when you do know what you’re doing and you make the best possible decision at the time, things can
change.
tip: The margin of safety is often sufficient when it can absorb double the worst-case scenario. So the baseline for a margin of safety is one that could withstand twice the amount of problems that would cause a crisis, or maintain twice the amount of resources needed to rebuild after a crisis.
Yet even established patterns aren’t foolproof. As Nassim Taleb writes in The Black Swan, “Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.” Our outcomes can sometimes upend even our most well-established expectations.
However, if you have a lot of expertise and data, you can reduce your margin of safety yet further. Here’s an example: Warren Buffett aims to buy stocks that are 30–50 percent less than their true value. So he has a 30–50 percent margin of safety on stocks. But he’ll pay close to a dollar on the dollar for stocks that he understands well. So there’s only maybe a 20 percent margin of safety on the stocks he’s the most confident in.
They spend so much of their resources getting there, they neglect to account for the ordeal of getting back. Lost in “summit fever” they forget that the most important thing isn’t making it to the top, but making it home. You can’t win, after all, if you don’t survive.
The path to success and failure is marked if you know where to look. The journey always contains the answers. Trip wires include both negative signs and the absence of positive signs. When the signs are positive, you know to stay the course. When things are murkier, however, that’s when it helps to set trip wires.
But negative signs aren’t the only ones to take note of. Sometimes the absence of positive signs is itself a sign.
Even if we’re waiting as long as possible to decide, we now know exactly what to focus on and do when the time comes to make our decision. We’ve set our trip wires, we’ve empowered people to act on them, and we’ve tied our hands so that we can’t undo all our good work in a moment of stress.
When failure is expensive, it’s worth investing in large margins of safety.
A margin of safety is a buffer between what you expect to happen and what could happen. It’s designed to save you when surprises are expensive.
Warren Buffett has a saying that I often come back to: “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”[1] The thing is, most of us rarely know what we are doing with the confidence required to go all in. When you don’t know what you are doing, a margin of safety saves you from the worst outcomes. Even when you do know what you’re doing and you make the best possible decision at the time, things can
change.
tip: The margin of safety is often sufficient when it can absorb double the worst-case scenario. So the baseline for a margin of safety is one that could withstand twice the amount of problems that would cause a crisis, or maintain twice the amount of resources needed to rebuild after a crisis.
Yet even established patterns aren’t foolproof. As Nassim Taleb writes in The Black Swan, “Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.” Our outcomes can sometimes upend even our most well-established expectations.
However, if you have a lot of expertise and data, you can reduce your margin of safety yet further. Here’s an example: Warren Buffett aims to buy stocks that are 30–50 percent less than their true value. So he has a 30–50 percent margin of safety on stocks. But he’ll pay close to a dollar on the dollar for stocks that he understands well. So there’s only maybe a 20 percent margin of safety on the stocks he’s the most confident in.
They spend so much of their resources getting there, they neglect to account for the ordeal of getting back. Lost in “summit fever” they forget that the most important thing isn’t making it to the top, but making it home. You can’t win, after all, if you don’t survive.
The path to success and failure is marked if you know where to look. The journey always contains the answers. Trip wires include both negative signs and the absence of positive signs. When the signs are positive, you know to stay the course. When things are murkier, however, that’s when it helps to set trip wires.
But negative signs aren’t the only ones to take note of. Sometimes the absence of positive signs is itself a sign.
Even if we’re waiting as long as possible to decide, we now know exactly what to focus on and do when the time comes to make our decision. We’ve set our trip wires, we’ve empowered people to act on them, and we’ve tied our hands so that we can’t undo all our good work in a moment of stress.
第 4.6 章：从您的决定中学习 - Chapter 4.6: Learn from Your Decisions#
the process principle: When you evaluate a decision, focus on the process you used to make the decision and not the outcome.
His decision-making process was sound. It just didn’t work out. Sometimes that’s life.
The right call doesn’t always get the intended outcome. Sooner or later everyone who makes decisions in the real world learns this lesson. Poker players know it. They can play their hand perfectly and still lose. Nothing is guaranteed. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt as best you can.
Our tendency to equate the quality of our decision with the outcome is called resulting. Results are the most visible part of a decision. Because of that, we tend to use them as an indicator of the decision’s quality. If the results are what we wanted, we conclude that we made a good decision. If the results aren’t what we wanted, we tend to blame external factors. It’s not that our process was lacking; it’s that a crucial bit of information was. (As opposed to when an acquaintance gets bad results, at which point we assume it’s because they made a bad decision.)
Obviously, we all want good outcomes, but as we’ve seen, good decisions can have bad outcomes, and bad decisions can have good ones. Evaluating decisions—ours or others’—based on the outcome (or how we feel about the outcome) fails to distinguish luck from skill and control. Because of that, engaging in resulting doesn’t help us get better. The result of resulting is instead stagnation.
Making a good decision is about the process, not the outcome. One bad outcome doesn’t make you a poor decision-maker any more than one good outcome makes you a genius. Unless you evaluate your reasoning at the time you made the decision, you’ll never know whether you were correct or just lucky. Your reasoning at that time remains mostly invisible unless you take steps to make it visible.
A bad process can never produce a good decision. Sure, it might result in a good outcome, but that’s different from making a good decision. Outcomes are influenced in part by luck—both good and bad. Getting the right result for the wrong reasons isn’t a function of smarts or skills, but just blind luck.
the process principle: When you evaluate a decision, focus on the process you used to make the decision and not the outcome.
His decision-making process was sound. It just didn’t work out. Sometimes that’s life.
The right call doesn’t always get the intended outcome. Sooner or later everyone who makes decisions in the real world learns this lesson. Poker players know it. They can play their hand perfectly and still lose. Nothing is guaranteed. All you can do is play the hand you’re dealt as best you can.
Our tendency to equate the quality of our decision with the outcome is called resulting. Results are the most visible part of a decision. Because of that, we tend to use them as an indicator of the decision’s quality. If the results are what we wanted, we conclude that we made a good decision. If the results aren’t what we wanted, we tend to blame external factors. It’s not that our process was lacking; it’s that a crucial bit of information was. (As opposed to when an acquaintance gets bad results, at which point we assume it’s because they made a bad decision.)
Obviously, we all want good outcomes, but as we’ve seen, good decisions can have bad outcomes, and bad decisions can have good ones. Evaluating decisions—ours or others’—based on the outcome (or how we feel about the outcome) fails to distinguish luck from skill and control. Because of that, engaging in resulting doesn’t help us get better. The result of resulting is instead stagnation.
Making a good decision is about the process, not the outcome. One bad outcome doesn’t make you a poor decision-maker any more than one good outcome makes you a genius. Unless you evaluate your reasoning at the time you made the decision, you’ll never know whether you were correct or just lucky. Your reasoning at that time remains mostly invisible unless you take steps to make it visible.
A bad process can never produce a good decision. Sure, it might result in a good outcome, but that’s different from making a good decision. Outcomes are influenced in part by luck—both good and bad. Getting the right result for the wrong reasons isn’t a function of smarts or skills, but just blind luck.
第 5 部分：想要重要的东西 - Part 5: Wanting What Matters#
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.
In life, we experience regret over both things we’ve done and things we’ve failed to do. The worst regret is when we fail to live a life true to ourselves, when we fail to play by our own scoreboard.
If you give any of the defaults command of your life, your ultimate destination is regret. Don’t live life by another person’s scoreboard. Don’t let someone else choose your objectives in life. Take responsibility for where you are and where you are headed.
Real wisdom doesn’t come from chasing success but from building character.
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.
In life, we experience regret over both things we’ve done and things we’ve failed to do. The worst regret is when we fail to live a life true to ourselves, when we fail to play by our own scoreboard.
If you give any of the defaults command of your life, your ultimate destination is regret. Don’t live life by another person’s scoreboard. Don’t let someone else choose your objectives in life. Take responsibility for where you are and where you are headed.
Real wisdom doesn’t come from chasing success but from building character.
第 5.1 章：狄更斯的隐藏教训 - Chapter 5.1: Dickens’s Hidden Lesson#
Happy-when people are never actually happy. The moment they get what they think they want—the “when” part of the conditional—having that thing becomes the new norm, and they automatically want more. It’s as if they’ve walked through a one-way door that closes behind them. Once the door closes, they lose perspective. They can’t see where they’ve been, only where they are.
In the process, we end up chasing praise and recognition from people who don’t matter at the expense of people who do.
Wisdom requires all the things we’ve talked about: the ability to keep the defaults in check, to create space for reason and reflection, to use the principles and safeguards that make for effective decisions. But being wise requires more. It’s more than knowing how to get what you want. It’s also knowing which things are worth wanting—which things really matter. It’s as much about saying no as saying yes. We can’t copy the life decisions of other people and expect better results. If we want to live the best life we can, we need a different approach.
Knowing what to want is the most important thing. Deep down, you already know what to do, you just need to follow your own advice. Sometimes, it’s the advice we give other people that we most need to follow ourselves.
Happy-when people are never actually happy. The moment they get what they think they want—the “when” part of the conditional—having that thing becomes the new norm, and they automatically want more. It’s as if they’ve walked through a one-way door that closes behind them. Once the door closes, they lose perspective. They can’t see where they’ve been, only where they are.
In the process, we end up chasing praise and recognition from people who don’t matter at the expense of people who do.
Wisdom requires all the things we’ve talked about: the ability to keep the defaults in check, to create space for reason and reflection, to use the principles and safeguards that make for effective decisions. But being wise requires more. It’s more than knowing how to get what you want. It’s also knowing which things are worth wanting—which things really matter. It’s as much about saying no as saying yes. We can’t copy the life decisions of other people and expect better results. If we want to live the best life we can, we need a different approach.
Knowing what to want is the most important thing. Deep down, you already know what to do, you just need to follow your own advice. Sometimes, it’s the advice we give other people that we most need to follow ourselves.
第 5.2 章：幸福专家 - Chapter 5.2: The Happiness Experts#
She thought about it and answered, “In my 89 years, I’ve learned that happiness is a choice—not a condition.”
According to Pillemer, “The elders make the key distinction between events that happen to us, on the one hand, and our internal attitude toward happiness, on the other. Happy in spite of. Happiness is not a passive condition dependent on external events, nor is it the result of our personalities—just being born a happy person. Instead, happiness requires a conscious shift in outlook, in which one chooses—daily—optimism over pessimism, hope over despair.”
The more we age, the more we come to see things the way Marcus Aurelius did: “When you are distressed by an external thing, it’s not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment’s notice.”
If there were a way of viewing things from the perspective of our elders, we might have the insight to live better lives—to see in the way the experts do what really matters and what doesn’t. In fact, there’s an ancient technique for doing precisely this: start thinking about the shortness of life, and it will help you see what really matters.
“Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life,” Seneca said. If you want a better life, start thinking about death.
She thought about it and answered, “In my 89 years, I’ve learned that happiness is a choice—not a condition.”
According to Pillemer, “The elders make the key distinction between events that happen to us, on the one hand, and our internal attitude toward happiness, on the other. Happy in spite of. Happiness is not a passive condition dependent on external events, nor is it the result of our personalities—just being born a happy person. Instead, happiness requires a conscious shift in outlook, in which one chooses—daily—optimism over pessimism, hope over despair.”
The more we age, the more we come to see things the way Marcus Aurelius did: “When you are distressed by an external thing, it’s not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgment of it. And you can wipe this out at a moment’s notice.”
If there were a way of viewing things from the perspective of our elders, we might have the insight to live better lives—to see in the way the experts do what really matters and what doesn’t. In fact, there’s an ancient technique for doing precisely this: start thinking about the shortness of life, and it will help you see what really matters.
“Let us prepare our minds as if we had come to the very end of life,” Seneca said. If you want a better life, start thinking about death.
第 5.3 章：Memento Mori - Chapter 5.3: Memento Mori#
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.[1]
I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, “Okay, now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have.” . . . I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried [Amazon]. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision.[4]
What we think of as defining moments, like promotions or a new house, matter less to life satisfaction than the accumulation of tiny moments that didn’t seem to matter at the time. In the end, everyday moments matter more than big prizes. Tiny delights over big bright lights.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.[1]
I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, “Okay, now I’m looking back on my life. I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have.” . . . I knew that when I was 80 I was not going to regret having tried [Amazon]. I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day, and so, when I thought about it that way it was an incredibly easy decision.[4]
What we think of as defining moments, like promotions or a new house, matter less to life satisfaction than the accumulation of tiny moments that didn’t seem to matter at the time. In the end, everyday moments matter more than big prizes. Tiny delights over big bright lights.
第 5.4 章：死亡的人生教训 - Chapter 5.4: Life Lessons from Death#
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
When you know the destination, how to get there becomes clearer. As Aristotle says, “Knowledge of the best good carries great weight for knowing the best way to live: if we know it, then like archers who have a target to aim at, we are more likely to hit the right mark.”[1]
Wisdom is turning your future hindsight into your current foresight. What seems to matter in the moment rarely matters in life, yet what matters in life always matters in the moment.[4]
Wise people know what’s really valuable. They know better than anyone that there’s only one life—no rough draft, no do-over, no restart from an earlier save point. They don’t squander their time chasing frivolous ambitions on a hedonic treadmill. They know what real wealth consists of, and they devote themselves to securing it—no matter what the crowd might think or say.
Sometimes the cost of being wise is that other people treat you like a fool. And no wonder: fools can’t see what wise people do. Wise people see life in all its breadth: work, health, family, friends, faith, and community. They don’t fixate on one part to the exclusion of others. They instead know how to harmonize life’s various parts, and pursue each in proportion to the whole. They know that achieving harmony in that way is what makes life meaningful, admirable, and beautiful.
It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
When you know the destination, how to get there becomes clearer. As Aristotle says, “Knowledge of the best good carries great weight for knowing the best way to live: if we know it, then like archers who have a target to aim at, we are more likely to hit the right mark.”[1]
Wisdom is turning your future hindsight into your current foresight. What seems to matter in the moment rarely matters in life, yet what matters in life always matters in the moment.[4]
Wise people know what’s really valuable. They know better than anyone that there’s only one life—no rough draft, no do-over, no restart from an earlier save point. They don’t squander their time chasing frivolous ambitions on a hedonic treadmill. They know what real wealth consists of, and they devote themselves to securing it—no matter what the crowd might think or say.
Sometimes the cost of being wise is that other people treat you like a fool. And no wonder: fools can’t see what wise people do. Wise people see life in all its breadth: work, health, family, friends, faith, and community. They don’t fixate on one part to the exclusion of others. They instead know how to harmonize life’s various parts, and pursue each in proportion to the whole. They know that achieving harmony in that way is what makes life meaningful, admirable, and beautiful.
结论：清晰思维的价值 - Conclusion: The Value of Clear Thinking#
The key to getting what you want out of life is to identify how the world works and to align yourself with it. Often people think the world should work differently than it does, and when they don’t get the outcomes they want, they try to wiggle out of responsibility by blaming other people or their circumstances.[1] Avoiding responsibility is a recipe for misery, and the opposite of what it takes to cultivate good judgment.
Good judgment can’t be taught, but it can be learned.
The key to getting what you want out of life is to identify how the world works and to align yourself with it. Often people think the world should work differently than it does, and when they don’t get the outcomes they want, they try to wiggle out of responsibility by blaming other people or their circumstances.[1] Avoiding responsibility is a recipe for misery, and the opposite of what it takes to cultivate good judgment.
Good judgment can’t be taught, but it can be learned.
关于作者 - About the Author#
The basics might seem simple but that doesn’t mean they’re simplistic. The best in the world probably don’t have some secret shortcut or hidden knowledge. They merely understand the fundamentals better than others. My favorite example of this is Warren Buffett’s saying “The first rule of investing is to never lose money.” Despite the lifetime of wisdom behind it, people dismiss it as too simple. An exercise in thinking comes from reasoning your way to this insight through first principles from the ground up.
Bill Walsh quote: “Champions behave like champions before they’re champions. They have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.”
The basics might seem simple but that doesn’t mean they’re simplistic. The best in the world probably don’t have some secret shortcut or hidden knowledge. They merely understand the fundamentals better than others. My favorite example of this is Warren Buffett’s saying “The first rule of investing is to never lose money.” Despite the lifetime of wisdom behind it, people dismiss it as too simple. An exercise in thinking comes from reasoning your way to this insight through first principles from the ground up.
Bill Walsh quote: “Champions behave like champions before they’re champions. They have a winning standard of performance before they are winners.”
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