This week I want to share a few ideas and lessons that have dramatically changed the way I think. These ideas are as useful as they are simple.
Rule #1: If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a no
This is my primary decision-making tool.
It’s useful in trading, and relationships, and everyday actions. It’s the best rule I’ve found for making decisions and committing myself to things.
If something is good enough to make me say fuck yes, it’s finished. I’m in. I’m committing, come whatever may.
And if it’s not, there are some very simple questions that need to be asked. Could it become a fuck yes? If so, how, precisely? What would it take from me to make it one? How soon can I start?
If there is a visible way to make it a fuck yes, I get to work immediately. If there isn’t, I walk away. From a relationship, from an investment, from a book I’m reading… from anything.
This rule does 3 things: it helps you find yesses efficiently, it helps you find nos efficiently, and it dramatically reduces the drag of regret in your life.
Small fires are better than big fires
Forest fires are not something to be feared and artificially avoided. They are nature’s way of keeping things cyclical and burning off dead wood. If you prevent small fires for long enough, you ensure that one day a fire will burn so big and so hot that it will completely destroy the forest.
Same thing with human beings.
Life is going to teach you some hard lessons whether you look for them or not. So you might as well accept them when they come and face them with some dignity. I think it’s best to be in a little bit of pain, all of the time. Times without pain are unexpected bonuses.
The unhappiest people I know aren’t those who suffer the “most” tragedy and hardship. They’re the people who are the worst at accepting and handling tragedy and hardship.
Slippery slopes are everywhere
A slippery slope argument, according to Wikipedia,
is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences.
Sometimes you’ll hear people, especially in political conversations, say “well, you’re using the slippery-slope fallacy.” Basically saying “you’re using a slippery slope argument, which is faulty logic because it assumes too much.”
But life is full of slippery slopes. The slippery slope fallacy is almost never actually a fallacy — it’s a very valid and real concern. In social, political, or legal debates, as well as in relationships or self-discipline or just about anything that has any consequences whatsoever.
If you let someone push up against your boundaries just a little too much, whether it be some institution, or your girlfriend, or your own parent… they’re going to notice that you didn’t do anything about it. And they’re going to do it again. And again. Because you’re letting them get away with too much, even though it’s only millimeters at a time.
And before you know it, you’ve been pushed back 5 miles from what used to be your “boundary.” And you wonder, how did this happen? It happened because you did not recognize a slippery slope. And because you didn’t have enough self-respect to have real boundaries in the first place.
Most great human tragedies did not happen suddenly. They happened gradually. Just ask anyone who lived in the totalitarian states of the 20th century.
Whose job depends on this?
Everybody has opinions about everything.
But it’s not often you find somebody with an opinion whose job actually depends upon how good that opinion is. The world is full of perverse incentives (tech CEOs), backwards incentives (suppliers of medical goods), and… professions with no incentive structure at all.
If someone is allowed to be wrong for 40 years and keep their job, don’t listen to them.
This is one of many reasons I am so fascinated by traders in financial markets. If someone is still trading after 20 years, it’s because she knows what she’s talking about. There’s no other way she (or her opinion) would have survived.
When asking a difficult question, find answers from people who have no choice but to be right across time.
Your suffering is not unique
Nobody’s is.
Never, ever say the words “you have no idea what I’ve been through.” Because there is nothing good that can come from these words. Not only are you wrong, but now you look like you’re playing the victim role. And that’s not a good thing.
Some recovery groups call this Terminal Uniqueness. The idea that you're so special and your suffering is so unique that no one could possibly understand. You're so unique and torn apart by tragedy that you're destined to die alone without anyone ever understanding you.
Even if your suffering is special, saying so is counterproductive. Saying this will push people away from you, not bring them closer to you in support or sympathy. Your supposed destiny of dying alone becomes self-fulfilling — not because people don't get it, but because you've pushed away anyone who will listen.
When you boil it down past your tragic specifics, you generally arrive at things like:
"My father is disappointed in me."
"My young life was full of uncertainty and struggle to identify myself."
"I have to work real hard to have happiness."
You know who can relate to those kinds of things? Everyone.
You know what it boils down to if you leave the stove on long enough?
"I've felt pain."
Your ego doesn’t like to have its specialness taken away… but your ego is not your friend. The upside is that you can talk to people you trust and share stories about love and loss and pain. That’s what it means to be human, and it’s a good thing. It means you’re not alone.
A hierarchy of learning
There's a hierarchy of ways to learn things:
Experiencing
Teaching
Writing
Reading
Hearing/seeing (this includes tweets, Instagram, the news cycle, etc.)
The goal is to move things up the hierarchy whenever possible. The higher you go, the better you internalize important structures and connections. If you stay at the bottom all the time, you’re not becoming a wise person. You’re an idle consumer, and you’re barely “learning” anything at all.
Books > Instagram. And they always will be.
Your subconscious mind is the smartest person you know
If you have a painful memory that won’t leave you alone, it’s probably trying to teach you something.
(I’m not talking about profound trauma — I’m talking about embarrassment, shame, angry memories, etc.)
The most likely questions it wants you to answer are:
“Did I betray my own values?”
“Did I fail to be the person I want to be?”
“Did I fail to protect something that ought to be protected?”
If you can find the answer to these, and truly digest it, you will take away that memory’s power over you. Your subconscious mind is not in the business of playing tricks on you, and it doesn’t want to hurt you. If you invite it to teach you useful things, it will oblige.
Insist on balance
There is a very short list of things I insist upon in my life. One of them is balance. Don’t commit to any routine for longer than a few days if it makes you hate your life.
If you hate your life, you’re useless to yourself and everybody else. That imbalance will show up in everything you do.
With balance comes the ability to love oneself and others properly. You shouldn’t insist upon money or lots of friends or an exciting career. Not if it takes away your balance and your good relationships.
If you end up on your death bed with 50 million dollars and zero people who admire you, you lost.
—
Drink some water but first make sure everybody knows that you’re thirstier than they are.
JDR
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” - Confucius
Great note! Thanks for sharing.
What or rather who is this about?:
This is one of many reasons I am so fascinated by traders in financial markets. If someone is still trading after 20 years, it’s because she knows what she’s talking about. There’s no other way she (or her opinion) would have survived.