# 39 unconventional ideas that will rewire your brain
**作者**: Giuliano
**日期**: 2026-05-23T14:02:13.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2058186743543656783](https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2058186743543656783)
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Each of these should alter the way you see things - upgrade your mental software. From climate change to aging and common patterns among business, biology, and physics.
I collect ideas from books, thoughts, anecdotes, and through observation.
This will be a long read. At the end, the full list will be included. Feel free to skip to the tl;dr and share, or bookmark for the full read later.
## 1. If you find a genius, give them all power
There come times in life when you encounter extraordinary individuals - people whose abilities are well in excess of your own. A handful of those times, you’ll also recognize a deeply moral drive. It doesn’t happen very often. It might only happen 1-5 times in a lifetime. But you need to be on the lookout. When you come across one of these people, partner with them.
Studying the life of Lee Kuan Yew flabbergasted me. Singapore was a malarial swamp. No common culture, no people, and no country wanted to help them at the beginning. Citizens didn’t even speak the same language. Then this man came along and he single-handedly fixed all societal issues, turning Singapore into one of the richest countries in the world by per capita GDP. LKY couldn’t have done it alone; he had a great team of ministers and advisors. That’s another feature of these astounding individuals: they know how to build an exceptional team.
Warren Buffett became Berkshire’s CEO in the late '60s. He turned a mediocre $15M textile operation into a $1 trillion conglomerate, while earning essentially no salary and partnering with Charlie Munger.
Imagine you knew a young Buffett. The single decision of handing him your money would make you end up billions of dollars richer. And you wouldn't have to lift a finger.
A Buffett or Lee Kuan Yew kind of talent might come once every century. And in all likelihood, we won’t meet people like them. But the idea holds true at all levels. Think of that marketing agency whose performance is 2-3x that of the other agency you hire. Think of the person who manages 1-2 people, but whose results are astounding and could manage 10-50. Think of your incredibly smart friend who could and would do a lot but has no resources. Life becomes easier as you stack tailwinds.
## 2. You are neither right nor wrong because a poll agrees with you
You are right because your facts and reasoning are right; because the outcome was similar to what you predicted. Other people’s opinions has nothing to do with the truth. Truth lives by itself. It’s independent.
Until Darwin, all naturalists believed in the independent creation of species. After Darwin, almost no one did. Everyone thought the world had been created 5,000 years ago; after Lyell published his work, no one thinks that. Before Copernicus, people thought the Earth was at the center of the solar system. Before Galileo, that a heavy stone fell faster than a light one.
What society holds true at any point in time is fragile. It only takes one observation to shatter it completely and for a new paradigm to emerge.
When Henry Singleton took over Teledyne, dividends were the only conceivable way in which companies could return capital to their shareholders. He figured that, done well, buybacks could create more value and proceeded to repurchase shares when multiples contracted in the 70s. Thereafter, everyone on Wall Street caught up with their tax efficiency and started doing share buybacks periodically. In the 90s, Singleton had his last interview and was asked what he thinks of this development:
> “If everyone is doing them, then there must be something wrong with them.”
## 3. The key to success is mediocre competition
You are always competing with someone. For attention, a position, a candidate, a customer, an audience. Every activity, meal, or plan competes with every other, time being the only true asset.
Winning can be a win-win, but that doesn’t mean there isn't a loser somewhere. Imagine you pitch your product or service to a potential customer. After your meeting, the customer meets another vendor. What determines whether you win is not only your performance, the quality of your service, and soft skills, but also how they compare to your competitor’s. How much easier it’d be if their product weren't functional or they didn't show up?
It’s not about taking advantage of other people. It’s about being smart at game selection. You’ll end up competing anyway, so you might as well pick something where you have an edge over other people. You must be capable of telling where your edge comes from. At a poker table, ‘if you don’t know who the patsy is 30 minutes into the game, then you are the patsy’.
Niches are large enough to support a family and fund growth. If there is demand, and you control a tier of the supply, you’ll do well. Doesn’t matter if you’re Alaska’s best fisherman. If you’re the best at something for which there’s stable demand, you’ll do well. Buffett oftentimes said that the best shield against inflation is being the best lawyer or doctor in town; your earnings are protected because you supply the market with a high quality product that’s continuously in demand.
## 4. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book - Munger
Near the end of his life, Charlie Munger often told an anecdote later in life:
he read an investment magazine every year for 30-40 years and had never found an actionable idea in it... until the 2010s. Charlie subsequently invested a couple million in the business portrayed and took out $80M in profit. He gave that $80M to Li Lu and Li Lu turned it into ~$400M. All of this in the span of under 15 years, I believe.
That’s how powerful reading can be, especially in investing. It only takes one idea to change your life. Imagine if you knew everything you now know when you were 10-20 years old. Would you exercise? Would you invest? Would you read? Would you spend more time with relatives?
You are not smarter than your former self. You’re just more knowledgeable, hopefully wiser. Knowledge is power; it brings profit in all shapes and forms. And the best thing is that it is, to a large extent, ‘speed-runnable.’ Read 1,000 carefully selected books and I suspect decisions become simpler. It’s immaterial if you read those 1,000 books in one decade or six decades. I strongly suspect you’ll take away most insights anyway. The difference is that you have that mental database to compound and work for you for five decades thereafter.
You don’t need to make all mistakes there are to be made. Learn from people who came before you; avoid the mistakes they made and take their advice. Life is very much the same in many ways. And you don’t have to figure out Newton’s laws by yourself; you won’t be able to, or you’ll spend your whole life trying. Just read about them. It’s a fair shortcut.
## 5. It’s always a skill issue
If you don’t get what you want in the long run, it’s likely on you. This is especially true nowadays, when opportunities are widespread; the internet and now AI have leveled the playing field.
This reframe is extremely impactful and pragmatic. From: It’s another person’s fault. To: It’s my fault. If it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I could’ve done something better.
It’s a reframe about responsibility and accountability. If you take it, you'll learn something from it. And your behavior will thereafter be more profitable. You can always do something better. You can always be better. Failed at an interview? Maybe my English or knowledge are off. Failed at an exam? I didn't study hard enough. Don't know how to close a customer? I'm not a good enough salesperson yet.
There's always someone who could do what we're supposed to do better than us. And not because they were born with it. They acquired the skill.
> "The easiest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want"
No one is a natural at anything. The rate of learning plays a big role in how quickly you arrive at a proficiency level and acquire new techniques. But not even the most remarkable human beings could've gone far without intense practice and focus.
When I read da Vinci’s biography, I was astounded by his obsessive personality and the attention he gave to getting every little detail right. Talent can only take you so far. There is no substitute for hard work.
Whatever another person has, you can have (naturally limited to changeable things, which I’d estimate to be in excess of 97% of cravings). Some achievements and results take more effort and time, but there’s no rule why you can’t reach a certain summit.
‘Aim for the sky. For, even if you don’t get there, you could reach the clouds.’ Improvement is deeply satisfactory, irrespective of whether you reach your original target. And time will pass anyway, so you might as well do something.
## 6. Cargo Cult Science
Feynman gave this speech in the '70s. He warned the audience about the upcoming new ‘science’. They’ll say their conclusions have a scientific basis, that they followed the scientific method, and that their opinions are just as valid as those forged through sweat and tears in the fields of mathematics and physics.
But they are non-knowers. They lack intellectual integrity and rigor, and ignore how difficult it is to produce any piece of knowledge. When trying to explain a phenomenon, the way to establish causality is by isolating variables in an experimental/observational manner and running tests.
Some of these people don’t realize their disciplines fall into the complex adaptive systems realm. Many variables impact any given outcome, and all of them are interconnected. Isolation is virtually impossible. And true causality can’t be determined because the environment continuously changes; new set of rules, the experiment is no longer the same.
Furthermore, if they do know this and insist on their newfound truth, it’s likely that they are not disclosing the whole picture. Failed experiments are left out of their papers and noisy data goes unreported. Only elements that validate the conclusion are presented.
Beware of people who claim they know something that’s really hard to know. The best shield is to deeply research a topic. See for yourself how hard it is to stay on the tracks of truth to not misinform others. Or you can lie to yourself, and others will play along.
> “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."
## 7. The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all - Durant
The output from your employed capacity is a function of how much leverage you have and how well you use each unit of time. If it’s only you getting paid per hour, earnings scale linearly with your input. If you have the eye or skill of a master, you might get paid per project or earn a share of the generated proceeds; output becomes nonlinear. If you manage people and get to decide how they employ their time at work, the foregoing multiplies. If you can manage money and understand returns on time, everything will be at your disposition.
## 8. Incentives
We repeat behavior that rewards us and avoid that which punishes us. No one wakes up wanting to bang their head into the wall. Pain is terror, in all forms. If a conversation with your friend was unpleasant, you won’t want to go through it again. And thus you might see that friend less often, even if the unpleasantness wasn’t out of a personal issue. We are wired this way.
Man’s genome took billions of years to evolve. On an Earth were catastrophe abounds, mechanisms were built into our DNA to preserve ourselves. Everything in your circuitry is optimized for self-preservation and reproduction. What is pain if not the body telling you you’re being constrained in one way or another from the thing for which you live?
If you want something to happen, align everyone’s interests toward it and it will. We only do things that are in our interest; the self-serving bias is too powerful. Generosity does exist but there’s truth to the idea that there’s no action that’s purely altruistic.
> “Reason, justice and equity never had weight enough on the face of the earth, to govern the councils of men” – John Adams.
It is interest alone which does it. When there are enough incentives, anything can happen. In the 1930s-40s in Russia, there were quotas to fill for arrests. It didn’t matter if people had done a wrongdoing. Quotas needed to be filled and any pretext was good enough.
There was an organization with two products. One was higher quality and it didn’t sell for a much higher price, yet nobody bought it. After some inquiring, management realized salesmen received a higher commission if they sold the lower-quality product. Managers inverted the commission and sales of the higher-quality product eclipsed the other.
Pavlov ran thousands of experiments with dogs to investigate reflexes. Most tests had the secretion of saliva as the objective, which in a natural setting happens when food or poison enters the dog’s mouth. Pavlov found dozens of stimuli that could be conditioned to trigger this reflex. You can use the sound of a bell to trigger saliva. Organisms’ cabling can be reconfigured to suit your needs. Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.
In finance, investment bankers connect companies that want to acquire others with potential targets. They are the deal makers and receive a cut of the transaction for their services. Because it’s in their absolute interest for a deal to be struck, their unconscious will push for it to happen, even if it’s not in the company’s best interest. Don’t ask your barber if you need a haircut.
I’ll finish this section with a story my father told me once. He was working at a consulting firm and had a group meeting. The manager who was leading it arrived 5 minutes late. So the guy comes in, everyone already sitting, and starts playing with the document he had at hand. Then he pounds the table and says, 'Gentlemen, are we gonna do what’s right or what’s in our interest?'
## 9. Intelligent is different from smart, and both can be stupid
I think being smart is being quick of mind; smart people are witty; they compute/permutate quickly and are good at pattern-recognition at the micro level. Intelligence is broader, but holds less specific power. Intelligent people can see the depth to things; they know what questions are worth entertaining and can hold one in their heads for days until they get an answer; they see the whole board and seem to understand nature at levels others don’t. It’s pattern-recognition at a higher scale.
Intelligence lets you build your mental schemas, and brightness let’s you sort through your mental library to analyze the problem at hand, arriving more quickly at the answer. Both are extremely helpful attributes, but neither can save you from stupidity.
> “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” – the Master
I suspect there’s a spectrum in intelligence that’s something like intellectual self-awareness. Up to a point, the more intelligent you are, the easier it is to act irrationally - you can argue in favor of anything, but are not intelligent enough to recognize blindspots that arise from the nature of things. You can even be a Nobel laureate and make terrible decisions, Long-Term Capital Management being the prime example.
We fall in love with our creations and are bound to overestimate our capacity. It seems like the more intelligent you are, the more difficult it is to accept some things are outside your control. Up to a certain point.
Nobel laureates in the field of physics seem to have long known how biased our judgment is. They don’t hold their ideas as True; they learned to hold them as the truth as of now. Studying history and how their field got to its current state forces that mental switch.
To this effect, 'people who are in the top percentile of probabilistic games have more in common with one another than with people in their own fields' - @mjmauboussin.
It’s unclear to me whether this is a genetic element. But there’s something coded within some brains that makes them more resilient.
## 10. Worldly wisdom
The modern educational system was created to meet modern reality. We live in a world that’s full of long-tailed branches. It takes years of intense diligence to place yourself at the frontier of any knowledge vertical. And it takes even longer to reach a point where you can break through boundaries.
These 10-20 years of education leave us in a place where we don’t want to revisit academia. We think of it as this horrible memory where we were assigned terrible reads about things we didn't care about. As a consequence, we leave proficient in one area while neglecting everything else.
This is a disaster. 'You're like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest'.
Real life problems cannot be isolated into neat boxes. Answering any question to any truthful extent requires knowing history, psychology, economics, physics. Problems are multifaceted and all disciplines are interconnected. The best decision-makers have a good understanding of the whole. They are generalists who also know their field extremely well.
Beyond that, how can you go through life without knowing? Learning brings profit, joy, and happiness. ‘You can’t expect to dream it up all by yourself – no one is that smart’.
## 11. Education is software for the brain
Without Windows or iOS, your computer would be an alien product. Impossible to use. Just by adding an operating system, it becomes this incredibly malleable, resourceful machine. Add software layers on top of it, install applications and learn how to use the internet, and there’s no problem you can’t solve. You’ll also save infinite time through efficiency gains.
That’s what education does to you. Reading a book adds ideas to your brain, words to your vocabulary, and you experience a wide range of emotions. Your mind acquires new lenses through which to analyze the world. And lenses compound; each hour spent reading builds layers of understanding. Decisions are filtered through them all, becoming sounder and more optimal.
## 12. Economies of scale
Manufacturing businesses typically have large headcount and maintenance expenses associated with their facilities. Both are fixed costs. As the company scales and sells more units, while keeping this fixed base flat, operating margins expand. The business becomes more efficient on a per-unit basis.
The same thing happens with organisms. The metabolic rate signals the energy we need to ingest to keep our machinery active. And it so happens that, the larger the organism, the less energy it needs per gram of tissue. Likewise, the larger the organism, the fewer heartbeats per minute it has. These represent huge efficiencies gained from scale.
In geometry, the area of a 2D objects increases with the square of their dimensions’ lengths. And in 3D objects, volume scales with the cube. So every time you double dimensions, in the former you get 4x the area; in the latter, you get 8x.
There are also inefficiencies that come from scale, such as the amount of weight a physical structure can support. The larger it is, the less proportional mass it can hold up. That’s why ants seem incredibly strong.
Sol Price figured out how to win in retail by understanding this and complementing it with his business savviness. As your business gets larger, you experience gains from efficiency. But your margin is others’ opportunity. Therefore, if you pass on your savings to customers by lowering your prices (Amazon, Walmart, HD, and Costco’s playbook), you almost can’t be taken out by a competitor.
## 13. Quality
A teacher stands in front of his classroom and reads two short essays aloud, both about the same topic and structurally similar. At the end, he asks students to raise their hands if they think the first one is better. *No one raises their hand*. Then he asks them to raise their hands if they think the second one is better. *Every hand goes up*.
You can try to quantify it. You can point to how sentences are framed, how commas are used, ratio of verbs to total words, pauses, and so on. But in the final analysis, you don’t know why it’s better. You just know it is.
We have an inner sense of Quality. It’s not taste or intuition, and it’s not analytical. It’s something you observe that can’t be seen. Something you hear that emits no noise. It’s a switch that gets triggered at the point where all our senses connect.
## 14. Extraordinary results are just 1,000 boring days strung together
Rocks can be worn down by drops of water. It takes a decade to create an overnight success. Think about any skill you’d like to be better at; then think how much better you’d be if you had practiced it every day for the past 3 years. It reminds me of the story of a great, old musician to whom, after the concert, a fan said to him, “My God, you play so beautifully. I’d give my life to play like that.” To which the musician melancholically replied, “That’s exactly what I did."
Innate talent is not enough. Newton locked himself in a room for months to dedicate himself to any subject that was of interest to him; all day spent thinking. Da Vinci spent ~16 years painting the Mona Lisa; and decades of intense practice and learning about painting & drawing to perfect his craft. Francis Crick and James Watson worked on a single topic for 2-3 years filled with frustration before they could discover the double helix.
No one double-clicks on the long periods of darkness and nothingness. All the greatest have gone through that, but everyone remembers the fame and achievements.
> To be acclaimed in front of everybody, you need to outwork everybody in front of nobody.
## 15. Stack the bricks
On one occasion, Steve Jobs was discussing a media strategy with an advisor. Both men ran into a disagreement, and the other guy did an experiment. He crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at Steve; Steve caught it. Then this man crumpled up five paper balls and threw them all at once; Steve caught none. Everything works that way. We only have so many mental resources.
One of the reasons why Google and Apple won was their intense focus on what they wanted to show the customer. Internet pages had every pixel crammed up with images and information. Smartphones were anything but smart. Google got rid of everything except for the Search bar, and that’s perfect for users. iPhones had only one button; now they have none. If something is not required, delete it. You risk diverting users’ attention to things that don’t matter.
We look more at buildings than we do at floors. If you have 100 bricks and lay them horizontally on the floor, they amount to nothing. No contrast, no excitement, no novelty. Everyone will pass by; uniformity catches no eyes. Instead, if you stack the bricks and build a tower, there’ll be no person who walks by without noticing it.
Businesses think about marketing in the same way. They have recurring investment in S&M, but when something important happens, all resources get concentrated on that announcement. A new product, fundraising rounds, new partnerships. Companies might leverage all channels and networks to publicize the same event. Incrementally invested capital in directing attention to the same event yields increasing returns (up to a certain point).
This is analogue to how @pmarca views venture capital: returns aren't evenly distributed. It's only a few that drive all results. If you develop an eye for what those few look like, concentrating resources is not only more profitable, but less risky.
## 16. There are multiple ways of thinking
Whenever da Vinci faced a problem and needed to think, he took out a pencil and paper and began drawing. If Leonardo set out to understand the motion of water, the flow of a river or the mechanics of sight, he just drew.
When I saw his drawings of rivers, I sensed how they acted as a mental model for da Vinci, or as an algorithm like those used to 'forecast' weather patterns. It became clear when I read he was working for Cesare Borgia. Leonardo came up with innovative military ideas. And the way he determined feasibility was by putting them on paper.
He was able to see whether something could work in reality by sketching it. And tweaking sketches was just like changing inputs in a computer simulator.
Learn how you think and leverage that. You’ll often hear people say that they are “visual thinkers;” some just want to sound fancy, but there’s deep truth in that statement. If you know how you think, you’ll be much more effective at everything you do in life. You’ll feed yourself the knowledge you need, in the right way, and optimize your environment according to your nature.
## 17. Real understanding comes through continued mental exposure
It’s not the same to read a book, which takes 15-35 hours, as it is to listen to a 1-2-hour podcast. And it’s not the same to read a summary of the book. You don’t get 80% of the job done; it doesn’t work that way. Understanding comes from continuously thinking about something, adding layers of information and theorizing about how new knowledge fits the picture.
Jung analyzed dreams by ‘turning them around and around, analyzing every single angle they had’. A thesis can just be a sentence: natural selection is the process by which superior organisms are selected based on their fitness and are thus able to yield offspring. But you don’t understand everything underneath; the pillars that back the theory up. Use and disuse, specialization of organs, tiny variations, shared commonalities. Those are what help you understand natural selection.
For what is understanding if not the capacity to profit from the knowledge?
## 18. Deep simplicity
Complex systems are the result of a few nodes interacting with one another, left alone for a long time. This stands true across disciplines:
- 95%+ of all biological matter is made up of only 4 elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen).
- With 3 laws and gravity, you can explain and predict the motion of all (large) bodies.
- All DNA is made of sugar, phosphate, and a chemical base, which in turn are built from pairs of 4 nucleobases.
- Electricity and magnetism were separate fields until Maxwell. With 4 equations, he explained the most varied phenomena. At the bottom of things, only a handful of elements serve as the Lego blocks.
When performing any sort of analysis, look for the 2-5 variables that move the needle. It doesn’t matter how immense an issue looks.
In the early 1900s, Milanković wanted to understand why the Earth has this pattern of an alternating cycle of ice ages and warm interglacial periods.
After 30 years of thinking and manual calculations, he reduced this enormously complex phenomenon to 3 variables:
- The eccentricity of the orbit - goes from more to less elliptical in loop. 100,000-year cycles.
- The tilt of the Earth's axis - obliquity. 41,000-year cycles.
- The wobble - slow, top-like wobble on its axis. 26,000-year cycles.
By tracking how these three variables overlap, he answered this impossible question.
@JeffBezos did a similar thing when he said that a leader's job is to identify the 2-3 big ideas and enforce execution against those. Amazon was built around: (1) Lower prices; (2) Faster delivery; (3) Broader selection. "It's inconceivable to me to imagine a world where people don't want that 10 years from now." These are the things that don't change and thus make a business resilient, while virtually guaranteeing positive returns on capital if you win.
## 19. Tweak a problem only slightly and you’ll turn it from impossible to easy
This approach is about finding pieces of information that seem to matter but are ultimately irrelevant to the final result. Then work around or avoid them.
What if asked you to pass a needle through a block of ice? It’s a physical impossibility. But if you heat the ice, it’ll melt and you’ll be able to pass the needle. Likewise, if you heat the needle, it’ll slide through. Learning different disciplines helps you spot shortcuts where others only see a wall.
The original insight came from Thorp. He was once given a geometry puzzle: find the volume of the solid part left after drilling a hole through a sphere given only its height. Because the sphere's radius wasn't provided, most students thought the problem was impossible to solve. Thorp tweaked the scenario by imagining the smallest possible sphere; one exactly as tall as the hole. In this extreme case, the hole becomes a single point and the ring becomes a solid sphere, turning a complex calculus problem into a 5-second mental calculation.
## 20. Systems naturally trend towards decentralization and specialization
Adam Smith pointed out the difference between a pin factory where labor is divided and one where everyone does everything. The former was orders of magnitude more productive than the latter. Focusing on one task increases your dexterity and reduces context switching. You become proficient at the task, while a jack of all trades is a master of none. Groups of proficient workers outproduce their counterparts.
Natural selection has caused a similar phenomenon in organisms. Darwin thought that the higher on the scale of Nature, the more specialized an organism's organs. Organisms less fit for survival were those whose organs were too general-purpose. They suffer from the same disadvantage as the pin factory that's full of non-specialists. Thus, a visible trend in nature has been the specialization of organs.
In economics, it has been at times believed that a central authority can set prices for objects and services fairly well. Reality proves that the foregoing belief is wrong. Hayek remarked on the flaws of such a system - a single entity can’t faithfully integrate all ever-changing inputs to make decisions. Thus, the trend within economics has been for prices to be set by free markets, to a greater or lesser extent. Arbitrage and incentives seem to make this the best alternative.
For centuries, Societies were been ruled by emperors, or hereditary monarchs. Senates have been introduced and tested in Rome and Greece, though subsequently again replaced by monarchies and empires. Aristocracy emerged as a precursor to democracy. Finally, society arrived at democracy as the optimum selecting machine to govern the affairs of man.
## 21. Complex adaptive systems
We’re used to extrapolating, to thinking linearly. When we see 1, 2, 3... we think the next number in the sequence is 4. Our brain plays great tricks on us by seeing patterns, real or not, and trying to solve for unknowns. This has great utility, but it’s not absolute. It works in mathematics and to a large extent in physics & chemistry; logic is power.
However, in most of life, it leads to terrible results.
Linear thinking breaks down when trying to explain most of reality.
Economics, psychology, sociology, weather forecasting, people management. Each of these has infinite subtleties. You can’t say that just because interest rates fell, asset prices will skyrocket; or that just because a person coughed, they have pneumonia. Most of reality is formed by complex adaptive systems, with an indefinite number of components and a compounded feedback loops. What one node does affects all others, which affects all others again in turn, and so on indefinitely.
Do a small change in input and the whole system gets shaken; the output is indeterminate. I once read that the world is its fastest computing machine.
## 22. Why thinking what no one else is thinking pays off enormously
History shows that we systematically improve our understanding of nature. Therefore, at any given point in time, Society has a set of ‘currently held truths’. These are placeholders. Bound to get displaced in the future. But they are the best we’ve got as of now.
In the 1800s, all naturalists believed in the independent creation of species. Darwin encountered no sympathetic agreement whenever he discussed his ideas with someone. Nevertheless, he published his work in 1859. After Darwin’s theory got out, everyone regarded evolution as the truth.
When that happens, there’s a huge switch in society. Everyone’s mental software gets upgraded. With new lenses, new ways of doing things come; new methods, analyses, and fields open up. They are all closer to the truth than before. And because that’s the case, more pursuits are profitable. Wealth is created and expands.
In investing, it’s not good enough to be a contrarian. You must be contrarian and right at the same time. There’s no point in a building being different for its own sake; it must be more beautiful, useful, resilient. The more people who disagree with you when you are right, the larger the payoff.
In general terms, if you manage to bring an idea to society, you are rewarded. And the farther it is from the currently held truths, the larger the payoff. In intellectual terms, there might be no single idea that brought as much profit as Darwin’s. There’s true value in stretching people’s understanding.
The two easiest ways to force this type of thinking come from one of Paul Graham’s essays: (i) Don’t be aware of conventions – if you don’t know what people think, you’ll think for yourself by default; (ii) surround yourself with independent-minded people – we are the average of the people that surround us.
People tend to think there are no more secrets out there, but a current example of this I came to appreciate is Graham Hancock. He posits that our record of history is flawed; Hancock believes there was an advanced civilization that got lost during the ice age and we haven’t yet put the pieces together. To argue, he pulls research from archeology, astronomy, sociology, and geology. It’s fascinating how he tries to connect the dots. And his view is forcing a whole re-thinking of everything.
## 23. The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones - Keynes
When we come up with or learn a new idea, theory, or process, it colors our view of everything. We fall in love with our creations and force new facts to accommodate to them. Any phenomenon we might encounter, we try to explain through our acquired idea.
That’s the man-with-a-hammer tendency; to the man with a hammer, every problem looks pretty much like a nail. He twists the problem at hand until he can crush it with the only hammer he holds. Hugely flawed way to operate.
Learning an idea costs so much that people don’t want to let it go to waste; they want to make as much use thereof as they can. Thus, science moves one funeral at a time.
## 24. You drift toward the average of your surroundings
We learn by imitation. Watching our parents conduct themselves teaches us how to conduct ourselves. While surrounded by peers, we copy behaviors from people we like or admire. You can’t fully resist this effect; it’s largely unconscious.
It has happened to me many times that I find myself expressing my views in a certain way and I wonder, ‘Why did I say that?’ Then I think deeper and realize, ‘Oh that came from Munger. That’s Feynman. That’s Buffett.’
When I was 7-17 years old, I spent a great deal of time with friends who played football; so I did that (loved it though). When I was older, I might meet with people who go to the gym more often, so I replicate that in some way.
Other people mold your behavior. And it’s a powerful force. If you meet with people who exercise a lot, you’ll be far more inclined to hitting the gym. If you gather around people who read a lot, you’ll start reading more and more. The obverse also holds true: if you surround yourself with smokers, you’ll smoke; if they don’t work hard, you won’t work hard.
It doesn’t matter how independent-minded you think you are. We tend towards the average of the 5 people who surround us.
## 25. Causes of human misjudgment
Our minds break in embarrassing ways all too frequently. You can’t avoid it. These failures are so deeply rooted that you can rarely tell when they occur; they feel natural. Worse than that, they feel right. And you experience great damage and suffering because of your wiring.
When anger comes, rationality leaves. Emotions cloud our judgment. And so do a lot of phenomena: if you are hungry, your decisions will be worse and your temperament more irascible; we fail to notice change that happens gradually; we twist reality when it hurts until it becomes bearable; we are more prone to agree with opinions of people whom we like; and so on. There are dozens of silent threats that lead to our misjudging events.
I think that, to a large extent, you can troubleshoot it. Learn new behaviors. What you can’t do is get rid of the intrinsic causes of malfunction. It works like addictions; you cure them one day at a time. The most practical way to do so is to become aware of all common errors and live in a state of alert.
A very useful piece of advice that’ll save you infinite trouble:
> “You can always tell someone to go to hell tomorrow if it’s such a good idea” Tom Murphy
## 26. Find out what works and do it
Lee Kuan Yew turned Singapore from a malarial swamp into a thriving modern nation, which now ranks ~top ten in GDP per capita.
He wasn’t an ideologue; the only test is reality. For every issue he encountered, LKY studied what other nations did and how it had played out. If something had worked and was analytically sensible, he would do that – like changing incentives to fix traffic or offering tax benefits to multinational corporations. If something was a common cause of trouble elsewhere, he’d avoid it – like at the beginning, when he chose not to have a traditional central bank that could issue currency lightly.
There’s always a place where you can find larger density of what you’re looking for. Looking for startups? Go to SF. Looking for truths? Read the classics. Looking for mispriced investments? Fish where the fish are. Look where nobody is looking.
If you don’t look, you won’t find. When Buffett was young, he’d flip through the whole Moody’s manual searching for investment opportunities. Naturally, he found plenty. Whenever you search more, diligently, you’ll find more. Working hard tilts odds in your favor.
## 27. After a business gets to scale, capital allocation matters more than any other thing
The skillset that takes a business from $0 to $1M is different from the skillset that takes it from $1M to $10M, different from $10M to $100M, and beyond. Complexity escalates, product lines increase, markets get saturated, the business model might change, individual sales no longer move the needle. Success might start with product, grow through sales, and stabilize via operations.
However, as the business grows and it starts printing 10s-100s of millions in cash annually, what you do with cash inflow matters increasingly more. Growth is not just bound to happen in most businesses; markets saturate. At a 5% growth rate in a capped market, deploying that capital to expand the core business might not be worth it. By reinvesting it elsewhere, CEOs can create value for shareholders that’s orders of magnitude higher.
Good capital allocation drives lollapalooza results and makes businesses more resilient. When Buffett took over Berkshire Hathaway, BRK was a mediocre $15M textile operation with $50M in sales but $175k in profit. Instead of accepting that Berkshire was a textile operation, Warren built a portfolio of securities and bought companies like See’s Candies and Blue Chip Stamps. Cash flow continued to be used for M&A and investment in public equities. Buffett turned Berkshire into a$1tn, diversified conglomerate. Further, in the 2010s, one investment created$100bn+
> “What Teledyne makes or sells is less important than the style of the man who runs it.”
## 28. History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes - Mark Twain
The world has gone through a large number of permutations, state of things. And it’s in continuous change. Both elements yield the fact that past conditions are in all likelihood to repeat themselves, in a more-or-less fashion.
Not knowing what has transpired leaves you handicapped. Chess is not only a game of analytical ability, but also of memory. Grandmasters typically hold hundreds of previous games in their heads, so they know what to play given almost any situation. Life, albeit less deterministic, works the same way.
Being familiar with past market crashes prepares you for future ones. Even though each is unique, they’ll share common elements. Analyzing the fall of Rome or any past great civilization might lead to insight about the forthcoming fall of current powerhouses. Studying what worked and failed in other nations will give you a good sense of what will work in your own land.
Nevertheless, we need a mental routine that forces us to remember. Most tragedies resemble one another. And all happy families are alike.
But this lesson is easy to forget.
In one of the last sections from Lessons of History, a rising young politician is arguing with an old general; he’s laying out the case for how history has played itself out. At the end of their discourse, the young man pushes for the two current great nations to make peace with each other; he explains why it’s the best for the whole world. The old general smiles and says, “Son, you’ve forgotten all the lessons of history, and all that nature of man which you describe”
> If you want to go deeper, read this:
> https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2033555672495796452
## 29. Uniformitarianism vs catastrophism
There are two sides to this idea:
1. How did a system get somewhere.
2. What happened after the system got somewhere.
Biology is the field that really helped me better grasp this concept.
The Bible acted as the source of truth up to the 19th century. And it posits that God created species independently.
Then Darwin came along, who spoke about little variations per generation of species, and ecosystems (Nature) selecting the fittest therefor. Given enough time, organic beings completely differ from one another, reaching the state of different genus, and species.
But it is the sense in which it happens that matters: It's a gradual, step-by-step process, in contrast to the Bible's "catastrophist"/abrupt explanation.
Fast forward to the 1960s and Stephen Jay Gould came along, who spoke about Darwin being wrong. In the fossil record, Gould found that species went through long periods of stasis, followed by a Punctuated Equilibrium (a concentrated period of time where evolution pronouncedly occurred), stasis again, punctuated equilibrium, etc.
The theme doesn't vary. Although fundamentally different from the Bible, the subject remains in the realm of catastrophism/abruptness.
Second, we have what happens after a system gets somewhere.
And for this I'm going to turn to Economics.
Adam Smith wrote in the 1770s that society largely works well for resource allocation because entrepreneurs get rewarded in the form of profit if they find an exploitable market.
However, he knew people are not dumb. When others see someone making a profit, they'll jump to that market and compete to get a share thereof.
Over time, he concluded, competitors will increase until the product's price equals the cost of providing it. No profits to be made thereafter.
Economists interpreted this as being a linear, gradual process, like Darwinism. But if you analyze companies, you'll see this is not that true.
@mjmauboussin published an article called "CAP, The Neglected Value Driver" in the 1990s.
Part of it is around this idea that the market was/is fundamentally wrong about forecasting cash flow. Corporate profits, seen from the capital investment point of view, represent the difference between the company's return on capital and its cost of capital.
And the market believes/d that excess returns are driven to zero in a linear, gradual fashion.
That's just not true. It kind of assumes the company's moat eroding slowly over time. But what I understand happens is that the moat disappears almost overnight. The company enjoys excess returns on its capital until, suddenly and abruptly, it doesn't anymore. It incidentally reminds me of Christensen's idea of disruption.
## 30. Lollapalooza effect
Extraordinary outcomes are typically the result of a confluence of factors working in the same direction at the same time. Multiple things going for something makes it much more likely to happen. Munger explained the Lollapalooza effect through how mental models and biases operated together, leading to Coca-Cola’s astounding success, as well as to explain the Moonies cult conversion. The Lollapalooza effect’s power comes from helping you think in terms of parallel tailwinds.
## 31. Paint the fence
If something is not worth doing well, it might not be worth doing at all. Why do something that doesn’t make your soul smile?
Steve Jobs’s father was once working on their house’s fence. What caught Steve’s eye was that his father went to extraordinary lengths to ensure everything was perfect. He’d paint entire boards, even the back facing the alley, which nobody would see.
Steve took that to Apple. Open up their early computers or any other product and they are just as beautiful in the inside as in the outside.
Self-esteem is the reputation we have with ourselves. Even when no one else will know, you will know. So do a good job. If you’re gonna do something, you might as well do something useful, beautiful, and well crafted.
## 32. The role of technology is to make complicated and expensive things cheaper and more accessible
Von Neumann invented the first computer in the mid 40s; only he and a few other people could use it. Two decades later, IBM built a business out of installing mainframe computers; only technicians could use them and they cost north of $1M. Apple brought computing to larger masses of people through personal computers in the 80s; they cost $500-$3,000 and almost anyone could now use them without needed much technical ability. Phones and iPads led the subsequent charge; they cost hundreds of dollars and even toddlers can use them given how UI friendly they are.
That’s the role of technology. It makes a highly sought-after resource (computing + memory) more abundant. Its price and the barrier to use it fall
## 33. Attractor states
Free-market systems are those where there is no intervention in private parties' transactions. People are free to buy or sell any given item. But, more importantly, they can choose the price at which they are willing to trade. This causes there to be two large groups of people:
a) Those who need the product and are willing to pay a certain price for it, ranging from A to Z.
b) Those who'd rather have money instead of the product, and are willing to exchange it at a price ranging from A to Z.
When you put these two groups in contact, a market for the product emerges. Its price will be bid higher or lower, driven by the transactions between individual buyers and sellers. Some people will want to buy the product to benefit from its usage, but they'll be willing to pay up to a certain price. Others will ignore it altogether.
Some sellers will regard the item as valuable and ask lots of money for it. Others might want to get rid of the item, so they try to sell it as cheaply as they can. Others will be producers, who'll sell it at a profit margin.
When you have a push-and-pull like this, the price will settle at an equilibrium. It is the price that represents people's preferences, on a weighted average basis. Such a price will act as an attractor state.
This mental model of systems converging to an equilibrium is something I've seen everywhere. Think about your field, discipline, job, and interests. It is highly likely that things are naturally tending towards somewhere. Spotting that place can help you make much better informed decisions and give you a great advantage over others.
## 34. Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein
Isaac Newton came up with a framework as fundamental as possible. He created a system for how the world works, based on 4 elements.
- Inertia: That all bodies will tend to remain in their state of rest or moving uniformly in a rectilinear direction unless a force is impressed upon them.
- Inverse reaction: That when a force is impressed upon something, the thing returns the same force to the object.
- When a force is impressed upon an object, it’ll affect its trajectory, modifying it depending on the trajectory of the force and the force itself.
- Force = mass * acceleration
- Universal gravitation, or the inverse square law: that all bodies attract one another with a force equal to constant * M1*M2 / squared distance between them.
These axioms and gravity explain the most complex set of phenomena:
- Planetary orbits.
- Tide motion.
- The precession of the equinoxes.
We can only go as simple as our understanding permits. There are patterns even in things that look bizarre. Always strive for increasingly simpler frameworks. If you can't explain it to a 5-year-old, you don't understand it that well. And you don't get rewarded for complexity; stepping over a one-foot bar might have the same result as stepping over a seven-foot bar.
> "For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
## 35. Ideas are much older than you think
Three years ago, I was reading Jeff Bezos’s shareholder letters and felt amazed by two ideas: customer obsession and passing efficiency gains to the consumer. Then I looked at CostCo and figured these guys had been pushing these ideas since earlier. Then I read Home Depot founders' autobiography; same ideas, highly similar framings even. Then I read Sam Walton’s autobiography; shared same values. And finally, Sam Walton points to the source of these ideas: Sol Price at FedMart and later at Price Club.
This has happened to me over and over again. I believe an idea to have originated at a certain point in time but, the more I read, the further back that idea can be traced. It feels like archaeology, which investigation always leads to stuff being older and older.
Don’t think you’re stealing an idea. In all likelihood, the person you thought invented it actually took it from someone else. Mankind has been around for a long time, and tens of thousands of years with a similar brain and environment. It’s natural for most ideas to have earlier roots.
## 36. Do what you love
Life is long enough to do anything, but not long enough to do everything. Choosing what to do means choosing what not to do. When facing relatively significant decisions, I find myself using the regret minimization framework: "When I am 80 years old, will I regret not doing this?" - Jeff Bezos
And do what you love; for the same reason. No one can beat you at being you. Work on things that feel like a fun hobby to you but heavy lifting to others.
You can very much fail doing something other people want, so you might as well take a shot at what you want. If you fail, it won’t be as terrible. But imagine failing at something you didn’t even want to do in the first place. That is a true waste.
## 37. True law is reason - Cicero
The affairs of man have been ruled by multiple forms of governments and structures. Good leaders and dictators have come and gone. Policies of the most varied nature implemented. Promises were responsible for despair and destruction. Much has been tried as to how to rule society.
Reason is what ties truth, God, and man. In any situation, what’s reasonable is what should be done. Malpractice should be penalized to the extent that reason permits.
People have an inner sense for morality and analysis. Oftentimes, human actions are strictly black or white. Whenever they fall into grey territory, good judgment is that which accords most with reason. It's easy for majorities to prevail, but "for something to be rightful, it must be reasonable." - Jefferson
When asked about whether the whole population or only a select group of people should vote, Jefferson pointed out the question was missing the point. The question, rather, is how many people should vote so that the most capable and honest person gets elected to the Office.
That democracy has evolved into a combat of extremes, whereby two parties focus on opposing each other rather than thinking about what’s truly useful, is a shame. They hate each other; and when anger arrives, reason leaves. We lose by trying to win.
## 38. You can’t teach an old dog to live in chains and you can’t teach old tricks to a new dog
You can’t change someone’s nature. If they don’t want to work hard, you won’t convince them to work hard. If someone is accustomed to freedom, you can’t chain them and teach them how to live with that. They’ll revolt. The more we’ve done of something, the more ingrained it is within us. Changing that deeply settled wiring is a bet that’s likely unprofitable.
Second quote comes from Warren. In business management, there’s no true retirement threshold. You can invest alongside a 50-year-old manager; if they love what they do, they still have a few decades ahead. It’s much easier to get these people right than it is to bet on an unproven new manager. People’s experience will work in your favor; you’ll avoid several costly mistakes every manager has to learn.
## 39. Knowers vs non-knowers
Whenever I hear "Adam Smith," the person immediately parrots "the invisible hand." As if the two were inextricably linked and the concept contained Smith's whole philosophy.
It turns out the invisible hand is only one paragraph and it's not even about what people talk about. Adam Smith speaks of it as being the thing that causes people to do what's right for society when they do what's right for themselves, "as though moved by an invisible hand."
This has happened repeatedly to me. People will repeat what others say. Very few are willing to pay the dues and rightfully acquire the knowledge.
The world is full of non-knowers. They learned how to prattle the talk, but they don't really understand what they're saying. Ask them a few questions and there'll be no sensible answers. They have not critically thought about the subject nor have they invested the years required to know it.
You must learn to discriminate between knowers and non-knowers. Only by discerning between the two will you rightfully delegate responsibilities or assign trust.
And I found two ways to learn this: (1) Read the source; (2) Become a doer, a practitioner - the real intellectual struggle happens when trying to take something from the idea to execution.
# TL;DR - List of Ideas:
1. If you find a genius, give them all power
2. You are neither right or wrong because a poll agrees with you
3. The key to success is mediocre competition
4. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book - Munger
5. Worldly wisdom
6. Incentives
7. It’s always a skill issue
8. Intelligent is different from smart, and both can be stupid
9. The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.
10. Cargo Cult Science
11. Education is software for the brain
12. Economies of scale.
13. Quality
14. Extraordinary results are just 1,000 boring days strung together
15. Stack the bricks
16. There are multiple ways of thinking
17. Real understanding comes through continued mental exposure
18. Deep simplicity
19. Tweak a problem only slightly and you’ll turn it from impossible to easy
20. Systems naturally trend towards decentralization and specialization
21. Complex adaptive systems
22. Why thinking what no one else is thinking pays off enormously
23. The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones
24. You drift toward the average of your surroundings
25. Causes of human misjudgment
26. Find out what works and do it
27. After a business gets to scale, capital allocation matters more than any other thing
28. ‘History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes’
29. Uniformitarianism vs catastrophism
30. Lollapalooza effect
31. Paint the fence
32. The role of technology is to make complicated and expensive things cheaper and more accessible.
33. Attractor states
34. Make things as simple as possible, but no more simple.
35. Ideas are much older than you think
36. Do what you love
37. True law is reason - Cicero
38. You can’t teach an old dog to live in chain and you can’t teach old tricks to a new dog
39. Knowers vs non-knowers
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---
*导出时间: 2026/5/24 09:11:49*
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## 中文翻译
# 重塑大脑的39个非传统想法
**作者**: Giuliano
**日期**: 2026-05-23T14:02:13.000Z
**来源**: [https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2058186743543656783](https://x.com/Giuliano_Mana/status/2058186743543656783)
---
这里的每一个观点都应该改变你看待事物的方式——升级你的精神软件。从气候变化到衰老，以及商业、生物学和物理学中的共同模式。
我从书籍、思考、轶事以及观察中收集想法。
这将是一篇长文。最后会附上完整的清单。你可以直接跳到文末的总结部分（tl;dr）进行分享，或者收藏起来稍后细读。
## 1. 如果你遇到了天才，把所有的权力都交给他
一生中总有那么几次，你会遇到非凡的人物——他们的能力远超于你。在极少数情况下，你还会发现他们有着深厚的道德驱动力。这种机会不常有，一生可能只会遇到1-5次。但你需要时刻留意。当你遇到这样的人时，与他们合作。
研究李光耀的生平让我大吃一惊。新加坡曾经是一片疟疾肆虐的沼泽地。没有共同的文化，没有（统一的）人民，起初也没有国家愿意帮助他们。公民之间甚至不说同一种语言。然后这个人来了，他凭一己之力解决了所有社会问题，将新加坡变成了人均GDP世界上最富裕的国家之一。李光耀不可能独自完成这一切，他有一群出色的部长和顾问。这也是这些杰出人物的另一个特征：他们知道如何组建一支卓越的团队。
沃伦·巴菲特在60年代末成为伯克希尔的CEO。他将一个价值平平的1500万美元纺织业务变成了一个价值1万亿美元的企业集团，而自己基本上不拿薪水，只是与查理·芒格合作。
想象一下，如果你认识年轻时的巴菲特。仅仅做出把钱交给他的这一个决定，最终就会让你多赚几十亿美元。而你甚至不需要动一根手指头。
像巴菲特或李光耀这样的人才可能一个世纪才出现一次。我们极有可能遇不到像他们那样的人。但这个道理在任何层面都是成立的。想想那家业绩是你雇佣的其他代理商2-3倍的市场营销公司。想想那个只管理1-2个人但成果惊人，其实能管理10-50个人的人。再想想你那个极其聪明的朋友，如果有机会他愿意做很多事情，却没有资源。当你顺风顺水地积累优势时，生活会变得更容易。
## 2. 你正确与否并不取决于民调是否与你一致
你之所以正确，是因为你的事实和推理是正确的；是因为结果与你的预测相似。其他人的意见与真理无关。真理独立存在。它是独立的。
在达尔文之前，所有的博物学家都相信物种是独立创造的。在达尔文之后，几乎没有人再相信了。每个人都曾以为世界是在5000年前被创造出来的；在莱尔发表他的著作后，没有人再这么认为了。在哥白尼之前，人们认为地球位于太阳系的中心。在伽利略之前，人们认为重的石头比轻的石头下落得快。
社会在任何时期所认为的“真理”都是脆弱的。只需要一个观察就能将其彻底粉碎，并让一个新的范式出现。
当亨利·辛格尔顿接管达泰尼达公司时，股息是公司将资本返还给股东的唯一想象得到的方式。他认为，如果操作得当，回购可以创造更多价值，于是他在70年代市盈率收缩时开始回购股票。此后，华尔街所有人都意识到了回购的税收效率，并开始定期进行股票回购。90年代，辛格尔顿接受了最后一次采访，被问及他对这种发展的看法：
> “如果每个人都在做，那么这肯定有什么问题。”
## 3. 成功的关键是平庸的竞争对手
你总是在与某人竞争。为了注意力、职位、候选人、客户、受众。每一项活动、每一顿饭或每一个计划都在与其他一切竞争，时间是唯一真正的资产。
获胜可以是双赢，但这并不意味着某个地方没有输家。想象一下你向潜在客户推销你的产品或服务。会议结束后，客户又见了另一个供应商。决定你是否获胜的不仅是你的表现、服务质量和软技能，还取决于它们与竞争对手的对比。如果他们的产品不好用，或者他们根本没出现，那事情该有多容易？
这不是关于利用他人。这是关于明智地选择游戏。反正你最终都要竞争，所以不如选择你有优势的领域。你必须能够说出你的优势来自哪里。在扑克牌桌上，‘如果你在游戏开始30分钟后还不知道谁是傻瓜，那么你就是那个傻瓜’。
利基市场足够大，足以养活一个家庭并资助增长。如果有需求，而你控制了供应链的一个层级，你就会做得很好。即使你是阿拉斯加最好的渔民也没关系。如果你在某种有稳定需求的事情上是最好的，你就会做得很好。巴菲特经常说，对抗通货膨胀最好的盾牌是成为镇上最好的律师或医生；你的收入得到了保护，因为你向市场提供了持续需求的高质量产品。
## 4. 一本30美元的历史书里藏着价值数十亿美元的答案——芒格
在查理·芒格生命的尽头，他经常讲这样一个轶事：他每年都读一本投资杂志，读了30-40年，从未从中发现过可操作的想法……直到2010年代。查理随后向那本书中介绍的公司投资了几百万美元，并获利8000万美元。他把这8000万美元给了李录，李录又把它变成了约4亿美元。我相信这一切都发生在不到15年的时间里。
阅读的力量就是如此强大，尤其是在投资方面。只需要一个想法就能改变你的生活。想象一下，如果你在10-20岁时就知道你现在知道的一切。你会锻炼吗？你会投资吗？你会阅读吗？你会花更多时间陪伴亲人吗？
你并不比过去的自己更聪明。你只是知识更多了，希望也更有智慧。知识就是力量；它以各种形式带来回报。最好的是，它在很大程度上是“可以速通”的。阅读1000本精心挑选的书籍，我怀疑做决定会变得更简单。你是在一个十年内还是六个十年内读完这1000本书并不重要。我强烈怀疑你无论如何都能获得大部分见解。区别在于，你拥有那个精神数据库，可以在随后的五十年里为你复利和工作。
你不需要犯下所有可能犯的错误。向你之前的人学习；避免他们犯过的错误，听取他们的建议。生活在许多方面是非常相似的。你不需要自己弄清楚牛顿定律；你做不到，或者你会花一辈子时间去尝试。只要去读读它们。这是一个公平的捷径。
## 5. 这总是个技能问题
从长远来看，如果你没有得到你想要的东西，很可能问题出在你自己身上。在当今时代尤其如此，因为机会遍地都是；互联网和现在的AI已经拉平了竞争环境。
这种重构极其具有影响力且务实。从：这是别人的错。到：这是我的错。如果结果不尽如人意，我本可以做得更好。
这是关于责任和问责的重构。如果你承担起责任，你就会从中吸取教训。此后你的行为将更有利可图。你总是可以做得更好。你总是可以变得更好。面试失败了？也许我的英语或知识有偏差。考试不及格？我学习不够努力。不知道如何成交客户？我还不是一个足够好的销售人员。
总有一个人能比我们更好地完成我们要做的工作。并不是因为他们天生如此。他们习得了这项技能。
> “得到你想要的东西的最简单方法是配得上你想要的东西”
没有人生来就是专家。学习的速度在你多快达到熟练水平并掌握新技术方面起着重要作用。但即使是最杰出的人，如果没有高强度的练习和专注，也不可能走得很远。
当我读达·芬奇的传记时，我对他的强迫型人格以及他为弄对每一个小细节所投入的关注感到震惊。天赋只能带你走到这里。努力工作是无可替代的。
无论别人拥有什么，你也能拥有（自然限于可改变的事物，我估计这超过97%的渴望）。有些成就和结果需要更多的努力和时间，但没有规则说你不能到达某个顶峰。
“以此为目标向着天空。因为，即使你没能到达那里，你也可能到达云端。”无论你是否达到最初的目标，进步本身都是 deeply satisfying 的。反正时间都会流逝，你不妨做点什么。
## 6. 货物崇拜科学
费曼在70年代发表了这次演讲。他警告听众注意即将到来的新“科学”。他们会说他们的结论有科学依据，说他们遵循了科学方法，说他们的观点与那些在数学和物理领域通过汗水和眼泪铸就的观点同样有效。
但他们是“无知者”。他们缺乏理智的正直和严谨，忽略了产生任何一点知识是多么困难。当试图解释一种现象时，建立因果关系的唯一方法是以实验/观察的方式隔离变量并运行测试。
这些人中的一些人没有意识到他们的学科属于复杂适应系统的范畴。许多变量会影响任何给定的结果，而且所有变量都是相互关联的。隔离几乎是不可能的。而且真正的因果关系无法确定，因为环境在不断变化；规则变了，实验就不再是同一个实验了。
此外，如果他们知道这一点并坚持他们的新发现的真理，很可能是因为他们没有披露全貌。失败的实验被排除在论文之外，有噪声的数据也不予报告。只呈现验证结论的元素。
当心那些声称知道那些很难知道的事情的人。最好的盾牌是深入研究一个主题。亲眼看看保持真理的轨道以免误导他人有多难。或者你可以欺骗自己，其他人也会配合演出。
> “第一条原则是你绝不能欺骗自己——而你是最容易被欺骗的人。”
## 7. 能管理人的管理者，管理着那些只能管理事物的人；而能管理资金的人，管理着所有人——杜兰特
你受雇能力的产出是你拥有多少杠杆以及你如何利用每个时间单位的函数。如果你只是按小时拿钱，收入会随着你的投入线性增长。如果你有大师的眼光或技能，你可能会按项目拿钱或获得产生收益的一部分；产出变得非线性。如果你管理人员并决定他们在工作中如何使用时间，上述产出会倍增。如果你能管理资金并理解时间回报，一切都将任你支配。
## 8. 激励
我们重复奖励我们的行为，避免惩罚我们的行为。没有人醒来会想用头撞墙。痛苦是恐怖，在任何形式下。如果你和朋友的一次谈话不愉快，你就不会再想经历一次。因此你可能会减少见那个朋友的频率，即使这种不愉快不是因为个人问题。我们天生就是这样。
人类的基因组花了数十亿年才进化出来。在一个灾难频发的地球上，我们的DNA中建立了保护自己的机制。你大脑回路中的一切都经过优化，以用于自我保护和繁衍。如果痛苦不是身体在告诉你，你正在以一种或另一种方式受到约束，无法过上你为之生存的生活，那它是什么？
如果你想促成某事，将每个人的利益与之一致，事情就会发生。我们只做符合我们利益的事情；利己偏见太强大了。慷慨确实存在，但没有任何行动是纯粹无私的，这个观点也有道理。
> “理智、正义和公理从未在地球上拥有足够的重量来统治人类的会议。”——约翰·亚当斯。
只有利益能做到。当有足够的激励时，任何事情都可能发生。在1930-40年代的俄罗斯，有逮捕配额要填。不管人们是否做错了事。配额必须填补，任何借口都行得通。
有一个组织有两种产品。一种质量更高，但售价并没有高多少，却没人买。经过一番询问，管理层发现，如果销售员销售低质量产品，会获得更高的佣金。管理者反转了佣金结构，高质量产品的销售便超过了另一种。
巴甫洛夫用狗做了数千次实验来研究反射。大多数测试都以唾液分泌为目标，这在自然环境中发生在食物或毒药进入狗嘴时。巴甫洛夫发现了几十种可以经过条件反射来触发这种反射的刺激。你可以用铃声来触发唾液分泌。生物体的线路可以被重新配置以满足你的需求。吃谁的面包，就唱谁的歌。
在金融界，投资银行家将想要收购其他公司的人与潜在目标联系起来。他们是交易撮合者，并为他们的服务抽取交易提成。因为达成交易绝对符合他们的利益，他们的潜意识会推动交易发生，即使这不符合公司的最佳利益。不要问你的理发师你是否需要理发。
最后，我将以父亲曾经讲过的一个故事来结束这一节。他在一家咨询公司工作，有一次开小组会议。主持会议的经理迟到了5分钟。这家伙进来了，大家都已经坐着了，开始摆弄他手头的文件。然后他猛拍桌子说，“先生们，我们是做正确的事，还是做对我们有利的事？”
## 9. 智力与聪明不同，两者都可能犯傻
我认为聪明是思维敏捷；聪明人风趣；他们计算/排列组合很快，擅长微观层面的模式识别。智力更广泛，但拥有的特定力量较少。智力高的人能看到事物的深度；他们知道哪些问题值得思考，并能在脑海中思考几天直到得到答案；他们看到全局，似乎在别人无法达到的层面上理解自然。这是更高规模的模式识别。
智力让你建立你的精神图式，而聪明让你在精神库中筛选以分析手头的问题，更快地得出答案。两者都是极其有用的属性，但都无法让你免于愚蠢。
> “仅仅有智力不足以让人明智地行事。”——大师
我怀疑智力有一个谱系，类似于智力上的自我意识。在一定程度上，你越聪明，就越容易做出非理性的行为——你可以为任何事情辩护，但智力不足以识别事物本质产生的盲点。你甚至可以是诺贝尔奖得主并做出糟糕的决定，长期资本管理公司就是最好的例子。
我们爱上了自己的创造物，注定会高估自己的能力。似乎你越聪明，就越难接受有些事情超出了你的控制。在一定限度内是这样。
物理学领域的诺贝尔奖得主似乎有