Explore Or Exploit? How To Choose New Opportunities

One big challenge we all face in life is knowing when to explore new opportunities, and when to double down on existing ones. Explore vs exploit algorithms – and poetry – teach us that it’s vital to consider how much time we have, how we can best avoid regrets, and what we can learn from failures. *** “Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness,...

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Mental Models for Career Changes

Career changes are some of the biggest moves we will ever make, but they don’t have to be daunting. Using mental models to make decisions we determine where we want to go and how to get there. The result is a change that aligns with the person we are, as well as the person we want to be. We’ve all been there: you’re at a job, and you know it’s not...

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How Julia Child Used First Principles Thinking

There’s a big difference between knowing how to follow a recipe and knowing how to cook. If you can master the first principles within a domain, you can see much further than those who are just following recipes. That’s what Julia Child, “The French Chef”, did throughout her career. Following a recipe might get you the results you want, but it doesn’t...

3w

Learning Through Play

Play is an essential way of learning about the world. Doing things we enjoy without a goal in mind leads us to find new information, better understand our own capabilities, and find unexpected beauty around us. Arithmetic is one example of an area we can explore through play. Every parent knows that children need space for unstructured play that helps...

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Common Probability Errors to Avoid

If you’re trying to gain a rapid understanding of a new area, one of the most important things you can do is to identify common mistakes people make, then avoid them. Here are some of the most predictable errors we tend to make when thinking about statistics. Amateurs tend to focus on seeking brilliance. Professionals often know that it’s far more...

Nov 2020

Descriptions Aren’t Prescriptions

When we look at a representation of reality, we can choose to either see it as descriptive, meaning it tells us what the world is currently like, or as prescriptive, meaning it tells us how the world should be. Descriptions teach us, but they also give us room to innovate. Prescriptions can get us stuck. One place this tension shows up is in language....

Oct 2020

What Sharks Can Teach Us About Survivorship Bias

Survivorship bias refers to the idea that we get a false representation of reality when we base our understanding only on the experiences of those who live to tell their story. Taking a look at how we misrepresent shark attacks highlights how survivorship bias distorts reality in other situations. When asked what the deadliest shark is to humans,...

Oct 2020

Why Read? Advice From Harold Bloom

The late Harold Bloom, literary critic and professor, may well have been one of the most prolific readers of all time. Given that, Bloom was uniquely well positioned to answer the question of why we should read and how we should go about it. According to legend, Bloom could read a 400-page book in an hour without sacrificing comprehension and could...

Oct 2020

Why Life Can’t Be Simpler

We’d all like life to be simpler. But we also don’t want to sacrifice our options and capabilities. Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity, a rule from design, explains why we can’t have both. Here’s how the law can help us create better products and services by rethinking simplicity. “Why can’t life be simple?” We’ve all likely asked ourselves...

Oct 2020

Being Smart is Not Enough

When hiring a team, we tend to favor the geniuses who hatch innovative ideas, but overlook the butterflies, the crucial ones who share and implement them. Here’s why it’s important to be both smart AND social. *** In business, it’s never enough to have a great idea. For any innovation to be successful, it has to be shared, promoted, and bought into...

Sep 2020