Career decisions determine where you invest the majority of your time. These important life decisions have a huge impact on your well-being and quality of life—and your risk of being replaced by a robot. In the industrialized economy of the 20th century, most people learned a skill and then worked the majority of their careers... more
Envy causes pain and unhappiness and can even lead to emotional or physical violence. We slip into envy when we resent others for their achievement or good fortune. There are two types of envy. Malicious envy wants the person who has found good fortune to suffer and to be stripped of their achievement, status, or... more
Do you dedicate time to improving your mental fitness? Most of us believe we should take active steps to improve our physical health, dedicating time to exercise and making an effort to eat healthier food. However, many of us don’t think much about enhancing our mental fitness. Go to bed smarter than you woke up.... more
Feedback helps you better see the reality of world around you. It allows you to correct mistakes and learn faster. Feedback gives you an opportunity to gain empathy by seeing different perspectives, and it shines a bright light on your blind spots, improving your decision-making ability. Better relationships and improved performance are the result. Helpful... more
Write down and track decisions to improve your judgment over time. If you are not evaluating your decisions, how do you know you are making the right choices? Good outcomes are not a good indicator of a good decision. How much was due to luck? Making good decisions requires practice. If you don’t track and... more
We are not experts on most things, so why does everyone need to have an opinion on so many issues? It’s very difficult to convince yourself of a new idea if a contradictory idea is already anchored in your thinking. We are too frequently blinded by our own opinions, but we can design decision-making processes... more
The more complex the situation, the less you should trust your intuition, which is your brain’s attempt to make decisions based on patterns it recognizes from a lifetime of experiences. Unfortunately, our brains can’t process the level of complexity around us, and our intuition can be dangerous when detached from data and analysis. In data... more
Good ideas survive deep skepticism and intense competition. Stress-testing ideas exposes their weaknesses and highlights their strengths. Innovation happens when people are encouraged to put forward their best thinking, no matter their status, power, or tenure. I heard Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and chairman, speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. He attributed... more
Create habits and automate decisions to save time and energy. Every decision we make throughout the day requires attention and carries an opportunity cost; thus, creating decision-making systems can make you more productive and less frazzled. Once you build a habit, you make fewer decisions. “We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We... more
Always seek out the truth even if it contradicts the beliefs you hold. Self-deceit and ignorance can harm you. In the science fiction movie The Matrix, Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) offers Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) a blue pill and a red pill and the opportunity to understand the true nature of reality. “You... more
