Clear Thinking

By Shane Parrish

• Archive - [1]
• St. Joseph Public Library - [2]

Notes

• safeguard: When you get information from other people, ask questions that yield detailed answers. Don’t ask people what they think; instead, ask them how they think.
• the hif i principle: Get high-f i delity (HiFi) information—information that’s close to the source and unf i ltered by other people’s biases and interests.
• Einstein -“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
• the 3-lens principle: View opportunity costs through these three lenses:

(1) Compared with what? (2) And then what? (3) At the expense of what?

• Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, refers to this technique as integrative thinking.[5] Rather than grappling with seemingly opposed binary options, combine them. Simplistic Either-Or options become integrative Both-And options. You can keep costs down and invest in a better customer experience.
• the 3+ principle: Force yourself to explore at least three possible solutions to a problem. If you fi nd yourself considering only two options, force yourself to fi nd at least one more.
• the second-level thinking principle: Ask yourself, “And then what?”
• 114 the bad outcome principle: Don’t just imagine the ideal future outcome.

Imagine the things that could go wrong and how you’ll overcome them if they do.

• 77 As you read what people have written, as you talk to them, as you learn from their experiences, as you learn from your own experiences, you begin to build a database of situations and responses.
• Man can do what he wills, but not will what he wills - here's my thought on it - [3]
• You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them.
• If there is a tagline to my life, it is “Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out,”
• the question of what your goals are in the first place - start with that for OSE, not last
• 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.
• 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.