Radical Openness Fuels Faster Learning Through Honest Feedback
Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the efficiency of those feedback loops, because it makes what you are doing, and why, so clear to yourself and others that there can’t be any misunderstandings. The more open-minded you are, the less likely you are to deceive yourself— and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are “believable” people (and it’s very important to know who is “believable”), you will learn a lot from them. #principleoftheday
Group Success Requires Accepting Overruled Decisions
A decision-making group in which those who don't get what they want continue to fight rather than work for what the group has decided is destined to fail--you can see this happening all the time in companies, organizations, and even...
Printing Money Fuels Borrowing, Creates Financial Bubbles
When an empire runs out of its own money, it is able to increase the supply of money. However, printing more money causes borrowing to increase creating a financial bubble. I urge you to watch “Principles for Dealing with the...
Your Learning Capacity Exceeds Your Current Knowledge
If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be this: Your capacity to learn is far greater than your current knowledge. Many people let the need to be "smart" get in the way of open-mindedness. But...
Confront Unwanted Truths; Good Things Resolve Themselves
Most people fight seeing what’s true when it’s not what they want it to be. That’s bad, because it is more important to understand and deal with the bad stuff since the good stuff will take care of itself. #principleoftheday...
Prioritize Big Goals Over Minor Disagreements
Almost every group that agrees on the big things ends up fighting about less important things and becoming enemies even though they should be bound by the big things. This phenomenon is called the narcissism of small differences. Don't let...
Judge Decisions Within the Broader Vision, Not Isolated Details
It's important to view individual decisions in the broadest possible context. For example, if the Responsible Party being challenged has a vision, and the decision being disputed involves a small detail of that overall vision, the decision needs to be...
Triangulate with Trustworthy People to Improve Decision Odds
My point is that you can significantly raise your probabilities of making the right decisions by open-mindedly triangulating with believable people. Even in a terrible situation, you can still raise your probabilities of making the right decisions by open-mindedly triangulating...
Five Forces Shaping Our Present and Future Risks
There are five major forces that together, operate in a big cycle: - Financial force – money, debts, markets, economy - Domestic political force – internal order and disorder, wealth gaps, and conflict between the left and the right - International world order...
Hold the Wrong Party Fully Accountable with Calm Feedback
Whenever there is a dispute, both parties are required to have equal levels of integrity, to be open-minded and assertive, and to be equally considerate. The judges must hold the parties to the same standards and provide feedback consistent with...
Focus on What You Control, Release the Rest
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to distinguish between what you can control and what you can’t. You’ll lead a much happier life if you’re able to focus your energy on the things you can influence — like...
Backtest Your Strategy: Historical Events Guide Stress‑Free Investing
To succeed at investing, you need to have a well-throughout, ideally back-tested, game-plan that you execute, rather than make decisions spontaneously. To build a well-tested game-plan, start by looking at all the big events that have happened before, because, if it...
Build an All‑Weather Portfolio for Today’s Uncertain Markets
I am at a stage in life where my main objective is to pass along to others the principles I have learned over the last 60 years that have helped me and that I think can help others. I believe...
Turn Life's Problems Into Puzzle Gems for Growth
There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of my life as...
Identify Patterns, Apply Principles, Cut Decisions 100,000‑fold
Using principles is a way of both simplifying and improving your decision making. While it might seem obvious to you by now, it’s worth repeating that realizing that almost all “cases at hand” are just “another one of those,” identifying...
Accountability Means Understanding, Fair Expectations, Not Micromanagement
Holding people accountable means understanding them and their circumstances well enough to assess whether they can and should do some things differently, getting in sync with them about that, and, if they can't adequately do what is required, removing them...
Unconscious Learning Drives Faster Evolution Than Conscious Memory
Natural selection’s trial-and-error process allows improvement without anyone understanding or guiding it. The same can apply to how we learn. There are at least three kinds of learning that foster evolution: memory-based learning (storing the information that comes in through...
Control of Hormuz Determines Iran War’s Global Impact
Comparing what is now happening with what has happened in analogous historical situations and triangulating my thinking with smart, well-informed leaders and experts has always helped me make better decisions. I have found that most wars are filled with big...
Control of Hormuz Determines Global Power Shifts
I’ve found that most wars are filled with surprises, but the stakes of this conflict are obvious: it all comes down to who controls the Strait of Hormuz. We’ve seen this pattern before—with the Dutch in the 17th century and the...
We’re Both Universe’s Center and Cosmic Dust
It is a great paradox that individually we are simultaneously everything and nothing. Through our own eyes, we are everything--e.g., when we die, the whole world disappears. So to most people (and to other species) dying is the worst thing...
Learn From Credible Experts Who Disagree Thoughtfully
Seek the advice of the most believable people you can find. If you don't know how to judge who the most believable people are, seek the advice of others about how to do that, such as people who have already...
Your Path Hinges on Who You Choose to Prioritize
Where you go in life will depend on how you see things and who and what you feel connected to (your family, your community, your country, mankind, the whole ecosystem, everything). You will have to decide to what extent you...
Balance Information Gathering Against Decision Delay
Some decisions are best made after acquiring more information; some are best made immediately. Just as you need to constantly sort the big from the small when you are synthesizing what’s going on, you need to constantly evaluate the marginal...
Constant Naysayers Reveal Poor Decision-Making Skills
Watch out for people who argue against something whenever they can find something--anything-- wrong with it, without properly weighing all the pluses and minuses. Such people tend to be poor decision makers. #principleoftheday https://t.co/B2OBDkdlDr
AI as Thought Partner, Not Just a Tool
AI shouldn’t be something you just "follow"—it’s a partnership. The idea that we can make the best possible decisions by just juggling everything in our own heads is becoming obsolete. To really excel today, you need a thought partner. You need...
History Shows Most Nations Experience Mass Displacement—Stay Mobile
That is an old saying I learned in Hong Kong that is meant to convey that any place can become unsafe and that having the ability to go to other places is invaluable. It is a lesson from history that...
Balancing Rates Drives Predictable Credit Cycles
In order to have successful capital markets, you see the same things happen again and again. Since one man’s debts are another man’s assets, you have to keep interest rates not so high that they crush the debtor, without having them...
Investing Strategies Aligned with the Big Cycle
Last week, I shared a chapter from my 2021 book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order that details the classic signs to watch for as the world geopolitical order breaks down in a classic progression of events that I call...
Bipartisan Push for 3% GDP Deficit Cap Gains Momentum
I Love and Endorse the Bipartisan 3 % of GDP Budget Deficit Solution In the House of Representatives there is now a bipartisan bill in the works to enact, and a growing agreement that we need, a 3% cap on the budget...
World Order Collapses: Entering Stage 6 of Global Disorder
It’s official: The current world order has broken down. In my parlance, we are in the Stage 6 part of the Big Cycle in which there is great disorder arising from being in a period in which there are no rules,...
Excess Wealth vs Limited Cash Fuels Asset Bubbles
Wealth isn’t worth anything unless it can be converted into money to spend. And when there’s a lot of wealth relative to the amount of hard money available — like we’re seeing today — bubbles are created. @nikhilkamathcio https://t.co/iBiRkkv7Ok
Historical Cycles Link US Inequality, Deficits, and Global Populism
The changes in the US over the last decade — rising inequality, massive deficits, and a shifting global outlook — are not isolated events. They are all interconnected and part of a dynamic that has occurred many times before for...
