Shane Parrish Quotes

You get paid linearly for analyzing and solving problems. You get paid non-linearly for spotting and siezing opportunities.

You don’t have to solve problems for others. You can let them be uncomfortable.

You can’t improve if you don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

What happens in ordinary moments determines your future.

You don't need more time, you need more focus.

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.

If I were a Dr., I’d prescribe books. They can be just as powerful as drugs.

I need to listen well so that I hear what is not said.

Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.

Seneca said, “Happy is he who can improve others not just when he is in their presence, but even when he is in their thoughts!

Results are a function of position. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them. Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one.

I don’t want to be a great problem solver. I want to avoid problems—prevent them from happening and doing it right from the beginning.

In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.

There are two ways to handle such a world: try to predict, or try to prepare.

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it, is committing another mistake.

The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person that negotiates with themselves every day.

One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances

it’s only after we accept reality that we can attempt to change it.

The most powerful productivity tool ever invented is simply the word "No.

Self-accountability means taking responsibility for your abilities, your inabilities, and your actions.

Our desire to feel right overpowers our desire to be right.

Reacting without reasoning makes every situation worse. Whether big or small, these unforced errors consume significant time and energy just to get you back to where you were before.

The only way you’ll know the extent to which you understand reality is to put your ideas and understanding into action. If you don’t test your ideas against the real world—keep contact with the earth—how can you be sure you understand?

The stronger we are relative to others, the less willing we generally are to change. We see strength as an immediate advantage that we don’t want to compromise. However, it’s not strength that survives, but adaptability. Strength becomes rigidity.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.

Choosing the right exemplars helps create a repository of “good behavior.

The emotion default: we tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts.

The ego default: we tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy.

The ego default urges us to feel right at the expense of being right.

While the rest of us are chasing victory, the best in the world know they must avoid losing before they can win. It turns out this is a surprisingly effective strategy.

Complaining is not a strategy. You have to work with the world as you find it, not as you would have it be. —JEFF BEZOS[1]

Life gets easier when you don’t blame other people and focus on what you can control. —JAMES CLEAR

«Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.» Margaret Atwood

we make repeated choices in life that become habits, those habits determine our paths, and those paths determine our outcomes.

Facing reality demands acknowledging our mistakes and failures, learning from them, and moving forward.

Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely.

There is an old adage that encapsulates this: “To the man with only a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.” Not every problem is a nail. The world is full of complications and interconnections that can only be explained through understanding of multiple models.

There is always something you can do in the moment today to better your position tomorrow. You might not be able to solve the problem, but your next action will make the situation better or worse. There is always an action you can control, however tiny, that helps you achieve progress.

In order to get the results we desire, we must do two things. We must first create the space to reason in our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and second, we must deliberately use that space to think clearly. Once you have mastered this skill, you will find you have an unstoppable advantage.

You might not have someone in your life who holds you accountable, but that doesn’t matter. You can hold yourself accountable. Others might not expect more from you, but you can expect more from yourself.

Our failures to update from interacting with reality spring primarily from three things: not having the right perspective or vantage point, ego-induced denial, and distance from the consequences of our decisions.

Marshall recognized that the only way to understand a problem and solve it was by going to the source. He constantly either went to the front lines himself or sent people he trusted to find out what was really going on.

Never forget that your unconscious is smarter than you, faster than you, and more powerful than you. It may even control you. You will never know all of its secrets. —CORDELIA FINE, A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

if you find yourself exerting energy to fit in with a crowd, if you’re frequently fearful of disappointing other people, if you’re afraid of being an outsider, or if the threat of scorn fills you with dread, then beware! The social default is in charge.

Working with a master firsthand is the best education; it’s the surest way of raising the bar. Their excellence demands your excellence. But most of us aren’t lucky enough to have that opportunity. Still, not all is lost. If you don’t have the chance to work with a master directly, you can still surround yourself with people who have higher standards by reading about them and their work.

The most practical skill in life is learning to do things when you don't feel like doing them. Anyone can do it when it's easy, but most people drop out the minute it gets hard. The key to life - Do what is hard, not what is easy; with passion, too, not begrudgingly.

Not all confidence is created equally. Sometimes, it comes from a track record of applying deep knowledge successfully and other times it comes from the shallowness of reading an article. It’s amazing how often the ego turns unearned knowledge into reckless confidence.

During their colonial rule of India, the British government began to worry about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi. To reduce the numbers, they instituted a reward for every dead snake brought to officials. In response, Indian citizens dutifully complied and began breeding the snakes to slaughter and bring to officials. The snake problem was worse than when it started because the British officials didn’t think at the second level.

If all you see are average people, you will end up with average standards. But average standards aren’t going to get you where you want to go. Standards become habits, and habits become outcomes. Few people realize that exceptional outcomes are almost always achieved by people with higher-than-average standards.

Why mental models? There is no system that can prepare us for all risks. Factors of chance introduce a level of complexity that is not entirely predictable. But being able to draw on a repertoire of mental models can help us minimize risk by understanding the forces that are at play. Likely consequences don’t have to be a mystery.

We also tend to undervalue the elementary ideas and overvalue the complicated ones. Most of us get jobs based on some form of specialized knowledge, so this makes sense. We don’t think we have much value if we know the things everyone else does, so we focus our effort on developing unique expertise to set ourselves apart. The problem is then that we reject the simple to make sure what we offer can’t be contributed by someone else. But simple ideas are of great value because they can help us prevent complex problems.

Most geniuses—especially those who lead others—prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities. » Andy Benoit6

Trying to please everyone ensures misery. Freedom is realizing that you're not for everyone.

Denzel Washington reminds us of this point: “You never know who you touch. You never know how or when you’ll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else.

Confidence also Comes from How You Talk to Yourself More dreams die from a lack of confidence than a lack of competence.

There is no perfect moment.1 There’s only the desire to continue waiting for one.

Criticizing others is easier than coming to know yourself. —BRUCE LEE

We’re much like the blind men in the classic parable of the elephant, going through life trying to explain everything through one limited lens.

mental model is simply a representation of how something works.

One measure of a person is the degree to which they’ll do the right thing when it goes against the popular belief.

our default behavior often makes things worse.

Champions don’t create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions.[*]

I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything unless I know the other side’s argument better than they do.

Your life is designed to get the results you are getting right now. Whether you realize it or not, you are the architect.

If you want new ideas, read old books.

Writing is often the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about.

Rationality is wasted if you don’t know when to use it.

When you see someone doing something that doesn’t make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense.

The leverage you have may not always be the leverage you want, but chances are, if you look, you will find you have some somewhere.

I’m no genius. I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots. Thomas Watson1

In the real world you will either understand and adapt to find success or you will fail.

Energy is precious and we employ it sparingly. It’s human nature to allow the current state to remain as changing it requires us to expend energy.

Too often we get stuck in “functional fixedness,” a mindset where we see in things only their intended use, rather than their potential use.

Outcome over ego.

«Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.» Anonymous

When understanding is separated from reality, we lose our powers. Understanding must constantly be tested against reality and updated accordingly.

You don't need more time, you need more focus. Fewer projects. Fewer commitments. Fewer obligations. Fewer responsibilities. Carefully choose what you commit to, then go all in.

confidence empowers resilience in the aftermath of negative feedback, and adaptability in the face of changing circumstances. You know what your abilities are and how they add value, whether other people appreciate them or not. If you’ve forged a healthy sense of self-confidence, it will see you through whatever emerging challenges and difficulties come your way.

Warren Buffett pointed out, though, “The fact that other people agree or disagree with you makes you neither right nor wrong. You will be right if your facts and reasoning are correct.

If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.» Charlie Munger11

Stories are an attempt to tame the terrifying randomness that surrounds us. As we go through life, we are constantly absorbing chaotic information that we make sense of through narratives.

In the space between stimulus and response, one of two things can happen. You can consciously pause and apply reason to the situation. Or you can cede control and execute a default behavior.

What separates good thinkers from great thinkers is: 1) The number of mental models at their disposal; 2) The accuracy of those models; and 3) How quickly they update them when they're wrong.

gets updated, and so too must your circle. There are three key practices needed in order to build and maintain a circle of competence: curiosity and a desire to learn, monitoring, and feedback.

Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned. When you are well positioned, there are many paths to victory. If you are poorly positioned, there may be only one. You can think of this a bit like playing Tetris. When you play well, you have many options for where to put the next piece. When you play poorly, you need just the right piece.

Far more probability estimates are wrong on the “over-optimistic” side than the “under-optimistic” side. You’ll rarely read about an investor who aimed for 25% annual return rates who subsequently earned 40% over a long period of time. You can throw a dart at the Wall Street Journal and hit the names of lots of investors who aim for 25% per annum with each investment and end up closer to 10%.

Commander’s intent empowers each person on a team to initiate and improvise as they’re executing the plan. It stops you from being the bottleneck, and it enables the team to keep each other accountable to the goal without your presence.

If you find yourself expending tremendous energy on how you are seen, if you often feel your pride being wounded, if you find yourself reading an article or two on a subject and thinking you’re an expert, if you always try to prove you’re right and have difficulty admitting mistakes, if you have a hard time saying “I don’t know,” or if you’re frequently envious of others or feel as though you’re never given the recognition you deserve—be on guard! Your ego is in charge.

Most people go through life assuming that we’re right about everything all the time and that people who don’t see things our way are wrong. We mistake how we want the world to be with how it actually is. The subject doesn’t matter: we’re right about politics, other people, our memories; you name it. We mistake what we believe for the true facts. Of course, we can’t be right about everything all the time. Everyone makes mistakes or misremembers some things. But we still want to feel right all the time, and ideally get other people to reinforce that feeling. Hence, we channel inordinate amounts of energy to proving to others—or ourselves—that we’re right. When this happens, we’re less concerned with outcomes and more concerned with protecting our egos.

It’s only weeks or months later, when we’re spending massive amounts of time fixing our mistakes, that they start to increase their burden on us. Then we wonder why we have no time for family and friends and why we’re so consumed by things outside of our control.

« You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

Children develop self-confidence when they learn simple skills like pulling up a zipper, tying their shoes, or riding a bike. Eventually, that self-confidence evolves and propels them to develop more complex abilities as adults—for instance, writing software, painting murals, or cheering up a disheartened friend.

The second thing we can do is to learn how to fail properly. Failing properly has two major components. First, never take a risk that will do you in completely. (Never get taken out of the game completely.) Second, develop the personal resilience to learn from your failures and start again. With these two rules, you can only fail temporarily.

We’re all born rather creative, but during our formative years, it can be beaten out of us by busy parents and teachers. As adults, we rely on convention and what we’re told because that’s easier than breaking things down into first principles and thinking for yourself. Thinking through first principles is a way of taking off the blinders. Most things suddenly seem more possible.

One reason we resist change is that keeping things the way they are requires almost no effort. This helps explain why we get complacent. It takes a lot of effort to build momentum but far less to maintain it. Once something becomes “good enough,” we can stop the effort and still get decent results. The inertia default leverages our desire to stay in our comfort zone, relying on old techniques or standards even when they’re no longer optimal.

business, the person with the fewest blind spots wins. Removing blind spots means we see, interact with, and move closer to understanding reality. We think better. And thinking better is about finding simple processes that help us work through problems from multiple dimensions and perspectives, allowing us to better choose solutions that fit what matters to us. The skill for finding the right solutions for the right problems is one form of wisdom.

Many people mistakenly believe that creativity is something that only some of us are born with, and either we have it or we don’t. Fortunately, there seems to be ample evidence that this isn’t true. We’re all born rather creative, but during our formative years, it can be beaten out of us by busy parents and teachers. As adults, we rely on convention and what we’re told because that’s easier than breaking things down into first principles and thinking for yourself. Thinking through first principles is a way of taking off the blinders. Most things suddenly seem more possible.

Clarifying your thinking and explaining the origins of your ideas. (Why do I think this? What exactly do I think?) Challenging assumptions. (How do I know this is true? What if I thought the opposite?) Looking for evidence. (How can I back this up? What are the sources?) Considering alternative perspectives. (What might others think? How do I know I am correct?) Examining consequences and implications. (What if I am wrong? What are the consequences if I am?) Questioning the original questions. (Why did I think that? Was I correct? What conclusions can I draw from the reasoning process?)

don’t control. All the energy you put toward things you don’t control comes out of the energy you can put toward the things you can. While no one chooses difficult circumstances, adversity provides opportunity. It allows us to test ourselves, and see who we’ve become. The test isn’t against other people, though; it’s against our former selves. Are we better than we were yesterday? When circumstances are easy, it’s hard to distinguish ordinary people from extraordinary ones, or to see the extraordinary within ourselves. As the Roman slave Publilius Syrus once said, “Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”[*]

The quality of our thinking is largely influenced by the mental models in our heads. While we want accurate models, we also want a wide variety of models to uncover what’s really happening. The key here is variety. Most of us study something specific and don’t get exposure to the big ideas of other disciplines. We don’t develop the multidisciplinary mindset that we need to accurately see a problem. And because we don’t have the right models to understand the situation, we overuse the models we do have and use them even when they don’t belong. You’ve likely experienced this first hand. An engineer will often think in terms of systems by default. A psychologist will think in terms of incentives. A business person might think in terms of opportunity cost and risk-reward. Through their disciplines, each of these people sees part of the situation, the part of the world that makes sense to them. None of them, however, see the entire situation unless they are thinking in a multidisciplinary way. In short, they have blind spots. Big blind spots. And they’re not aware of their blind spots. [...] Relying on only a few models is like having a 400-horsepower brain that’s only generating 50 horsepower of output. To increase your mental efficiency and reach your 400-horsepower potential, you need to use a latticework of mental models. Exactly the same sort of pattern that graces backyards everywhere, a lattice is a series of points that connect to and reinforce each other. The Great Models can be understood in the same way—models influence and interact with each other to create a structure that can be used to evaluate and understand ideas. [...] Without a latticework of the Great Models our decisions become harder, slower, and less creative. But by using a mental models approach, we can complement our specializations by being curious about how the rest of the world works. A quick glance at the Nobel Prize winners list show that many of them, obviously extreme specialists in something, had multidisciplinary interests that supported their achievements. [...] The more high-quality mental models you have in your mental toolbox, the more likely you will have the ones needed to understand the problem. And understanding is everything. The better you understand, the better the potential actions you can take. The better the potential actions, the fewer problems you’ll encounter down the road. Better models make better decisions.