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A useful service
I intend to keep this section for quirky products that do "one simple thing" well.
Often we can forget that money is just another way to represent our time. As a result, it is easy to undervalue money.
"Time = Money" — Chrome extension to replace all prices with the time you need to work to earn that much. Here’s the link.
The main stuff
Wanted to talk about some fun mental tools.
They were very thought provoking for me. I use many of them in my day-to-day life and thought of sharing them with you.
Not necessarily rigorous—let alone scientific—but rather witty. Something you can explore more over the weekend.
1. Survivorship bias
We adore successful people. They set the bar for us.
To achieve the same results as they did, we try to copy their actions. But by focusing on them, we overlook the losers that made the same decisions, typically because of their lack of visibility.
Think of entrepreneurship: we concentrate on those billionaires who "made it" in order to understand how to run our business, failing to see that the other 99% of people who acted similarly failed dramatically. We get fooled by randomness.
Daniel Kahneman wrote: “A stupid decision that works out well becomes a brilliant decision in hindsight.”
If you want to read an interesting story on how this was used in World War 2, click here.
2. Paradox of abundance
On a large scale, the more we have, the less capable we become at dealing with it.
Nassim Taleb wrote: “Abundance is harder for us to handle than scarcity."
The more food we have, the less healthy we become. The more information we have, the less knowledgeable we become.
However, environments of abundance may indeed be bad for the vast majority--but they are extremely good for a minority of conscious individuals. In other words, if you're motivated enough to eat well and think well, an unlimited amount of nutritious food and information is exactly what you need.
I wrote about how an abundance of jobs affects our careers here.
3. Charisma razor
Occam’s razor states that, “the simplest explanation is usually the best one.”
Similar to that is Charisma razor.
Imagine you are a judge at American Idol. You have to choose between two singers. Both performed really well.
The first one is highly refined in appearance. He wears an expensive suit. He has blue eyes, curly hair, and a charming smile. The second one is bald, overweight, and looks like a truck driver. Now if I had to pick, I would take the "truck driver" any minute. Why? Simply because the one who doesn't look like a singer had much more to overcome in terms of perception.
If you are lucky to find someone who succeeded despite not looking the part--the chances are-he may be truly talented.
The same happens during job interviews. If you have two similar performing candidates, the employer tends to chose the better dressed one or the more dynamic one.
If you want to explore more, Paul Graham wrote an article on this.
Here’s an illustration to spark your intellectual curiosity this week.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.
— Steve Jobs
Until next Monday, Moaters!