Ideas That Changed My Life DEC 7, 2022 by Morgan Housel (courtesy TNCR)
“You spend years trying to learn new stuff but then look back and realize
that maybe 10 big ideas truly changed how you think and drive most of what
you believe.
A few of mine: HOUSEL:
Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential that tribe
is on their thinking. There is little correlation between climate change
denial and scientific literacy. But there is a strong correlation between
climate change denial and political affiliation. That’s an extreme example,
but everyone has views persuaded by identity over pure analysis. There’s
four parts to this:
Tribes are everywhere: Countries, states, parties, companies, industries,
departments, investment styles, economic philosophies, religions, families,
schools, majors, credentials, Twitter communities.
People are drawn to tribes because there’s comfort in knowing others
understand your background and goals.
Tribes reduce the ability to challenge ideas or diversify your views
because no one wants to lose support of the tribe.
Tribes are as self-interested as people, encouraging ideas and narratives
that promote their survival. But they’re exponentially more influential
than any single person. So tribes are very effective at promoting views
that aren’t analytical or rational, and people loyal to their tribes are
very poor at realizing it.
Everything’s been done before. The scenes change but the behaviors and
outcomes don’t. Historian Niall Ferguson’s plug for his profession is that
“The dead outnumber the living 14 to 1, and we ignore the accumulated
experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril.” The biggest
lesson from the 100 billion people who are no longer alive is that they
tried everything we’re trying today. The details were different, but they
tried to outwit entrenched competition. They swung from optimism to
pessimism at the worst times. They battled unsuccessfully against reversion
to the mean. They learned that popular things seem safe because so many
people are involved, but they’re most dangerous because they’re most
competitive. Same stuff that guides today, and will guide tomorrow. History
is abused when specific events are used as a guide to the future. It’s way
more useful as a benchmark for how people react to risk and incentives,
which is pretty stable over time.
Multi-discipline learning: There’s as much to learn about your field from
other fields than there is within your field. Most professions, even ones
that look wildly different, live under the umbrella of “Understanding how
people respond to incentives, how to convincingly solve their problems, and
how to work with others who are difficult to communicate with and/or
disagree with you.” Once you see the roots shared by most fields you
realize there’s a sink of information you’ve been ignoring that can help
you make better sense of your own profession. I didn’t appreciate how
important communication is to providing investment advice before reading
about how many doctors struggle to communicate effectively with patients,
leading to patients who don’t stick with treatment plans and are resistant
to lifestyle change. There are millions of these dots to connect. Probing
beyond the confines of your day job is more fun anyways.
Self-interest can lead people to believe and justify nearly anything. Think
about businesses trying to survive competition being run by people trying
to prove their career worth, and the incentive to run with the option that
provides the cleanest path to the next win is huge, even when that option
is something you wouldn’t accept in less-stressful circumstances. I have
seen investors justify strategies and sales techniques they fiercely argued
against at previous employers, coming around the moment their career
depended on it. These are good, honest people. But self-interest is a
freight train of persuasion. When you accept how powerful it is you become
more skeptical of promotion, and more empathetic to those doing the
promoting.
Room for error is underappreciated and misunderstood. It’s usually viewed
as a conservative hedge, used by those who don’t want to take much risk.
But when used appropriately it’s the opposite. Room for error lets you
stick around long enough to let the odds of benefiting from a
low-probability outcome fall in your favor. Since the biggest gains occur
the most infrequently – either because they don’t happen often or because
they take time to compound – the person with enough room for error in part
of their strategy to let them endure hardship in the other part of their
strategy has an edge over the person who gets wiped out, game over, insert
more tokens, at the first hiccup.
Learn faster than your competition. Empathize with customers more than your
competition. Communicate more effectively than your competition. Be willing
to fail more than your competition. Wait longer than your
competition.Everything else – intelligence, design, insight – gets smashed
to pieces by competitors who are almost certainly as smart as you.
Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in
the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works. People believe
what they’ve seen happen exponentially more than what they read about has
happened to other people, if they read about other people at all. We’re all
biased to our own personal history. Everyone. If you’ve lived through
hyperinflation, or a 50% bear market, or were born to rich parents, or have
been discriminated against, you both understand something that people who
haven’t experienced those things never will, but you’ll also likely
overestimate the prevalence of those things happening again, or happening
to other people.”
KR So what was he; a thinker with imagination, tinkering 0.0001%
he saw. An Imaginative mind to write from the perceptions, spinning some
yarns so effectively, lead or try to lead , towards the acceptance or
denial of the USA presidency. When he reADS YESTER YEARS RECENTLY, FOUND
SIMILAR WRITE UP, BY HIS GRAND FATHERS; SO, FROM THAT 0.0001% ASSUMED
ALWAYS THE TRIBES ALREADY SPOKE ABOUT THE SAME THING.
For example, what changed my life, were written by so many tribes
in the past 1000 years, where, the incidents were observed, only by those,
who wanted to travel that path already, unaware of the Road to travel. The
famous hotelier, when crossed in the centre of the crossroads, without
anything to do, and wanted to travel in some direction, happened to see the
pan cake old woman who was telling him how peacefully she lived by helping
those who are /were hungry. (They were in that 100billion before). So came
to the center of his state and joined a small CLUB (hotels, restaurants etc
names came only later) . Then he added his own morning and evening club of
his own; after 40m years he saw he was being hunted around all over India.
However, there were 100 like him, from the same state doing similar one;
many went off the field; there was no change; some stuck around so as to
make their wards USA software Engineers. One in a million alone could
crack, with the similar tribal thinking as thought over by so many earlier.
A billion things that made me change stories are aplenty on this
earth. Undoubtedly they are all motivational pieces only; and all those who
went through the ordeals ran their races to write, HOW I CAME TO BE ; but
no one could say what is the level as tax sleuths are closing around. I am
not making fun; but our Vedas do teach a different story as to work with
the desire to progress but to accept the rewards whatever it may be, which
we do not prefer. We are teaching our posterity only William Tell the
archer and never Ekalavya. And only the progressive can spin but the rest
cannot even open their mind. KR IRS 18 12 23
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Rangarajan T.N.C. <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 at 07:45
Subject: Everyone belongs to a tribe and underestimates how influential
that tribe is on their thinking.
To:
https://collabfund.com/blog/ideas-that-changed-my-life/?
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