Why is it so hard to sift the essential from the inessential? Einstein knew that few things have more of an impact on your life and career than your ability to zero in on what matters most. | Continue reading
The quality of your life is directly affected by those you spend time with. Identify (and eliminate) toxic relationships in your life using Bayes's probability theory. | Continue reading
The power of habits comes from their automaticity. This is why they are more powerful than goals. Read this article to harness the power of habits. | Continue reading
Jim Dethmer, founder of The Conscious Leadership Group shares practical advice about becoming more self-aware, ditching the victim mindset, and connecting more fully with the people in our lives. | Continue reading
Uncover the key differences between people that bring an open and closed mind to the table and learn how those two mindsets affect our success. | Continue reading
Just because you see does not mean you observe. The difference between seeing and observing is fundamental to many aspects of life. Observation is more than simply seeing something, but rather a mental process involving both visual and thought. | Continue reading
It's often easier to avoid stupidity rather than trying to be brilliant. Read this article to learn when to avoid stupidity and when to pursue brilliance. | Continue reading
An interview with Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos touches on the timless lessons he's learned for business success. The three big ideas are (1) thinking on a different timescale; (2) putting the customer first; and (3) inveting. | Continue reading
Charlie Munger's famous lecture on the art of stock picking as a subdivision of the art of worldly wisdom. | Continue reading
DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg talks data privacy, protecting yourself online and shares his favorite mental models for clearer thinking. | Continue reading
The first volume of The Great Mental Models is officially out. This book highlights the top nine mental models that are guaranteed to improve your thinking and how you interpret your world. | Continue reading
Gate's Law: “Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.” Here’s why it matters to you. | Continue reading
First Principles tinking breaks down true understanding into building blocks we can reassemble. It turns out most of us don’t know as much as we think we do. | Continue reading
One of the engines behind the Italian Renaissance was the concept of paragone—pitting creative efforts against one another to drive progress upward. Here’s how you can use it in your own organizations. | Continue reading
Knowledge, like potato salad, goes bad over time. Smoking, Pluto, and the brontosaurus are just a few examples. Here’s how to manage the half-life of knowledge and stay current in an ever-changing world. | Continue reading
A compendium of book recommendations that Nassim Taleb has made over the years all in one shareable place. | Continue reading
We make up stories in our minds and then against all evidence, defend them tooth and nail. Understanding why we do this is the key to discovering truth and making wiser decisions. | Continue reading
Making better decisions is one of the best skills we can develop. Good decisions save time, money, and stress. Here, we break down what makes a good decision and what we can do to improve our decision-making processes. | Continue reading
Daniel Gross, former Y Combinator partner and current founder of Pioneer, discusses how we can make our success less about luck, the powerful role we play in the lives of others, and the valuable lessons he learned about leadership. | Continue reading
Building a team is more complicated than collecting talent. I once tried to solve a problem by putting a bunch of PhD's in a room. While comments like that sounded good and got me a lot of projects above my level, they were rarely effective at delivering actual results. | Continue reading
David Foster Wallace's remarkable 2005 commencement speech, this is water, is a timeless trove of wisdom for living a meaningful life. Here is a full transcript along with audio. | Continue reading
It’s getting harder to have the expertise necessary to navigate every arena in our lives independently. Sometimes, we need to defer to the expertise of others, but how do we know who to trust? | Continue reading
Complexity bias is a logical fallacy that leads us to give undue credence to complex concepts. Faced with two competing hypotheses, we are likely to choose the most complex one. | Continue reading
Second-order thinking is a mental model that smart people like Warren Buffett & Howard Marks use to avoid problems. Read this article to learn how it works. | Continue reading
If the mother of a Guernsey and a Brahma calf dies, one of the calves will survive and one will not. One thing makes the difference. And is it the very factor that keeps us from reaching what we want most. | Continue reading
Uncover the key differences between amateurs and professionals that make a difference and improve the prospects of success. | Continue reading
The hard truth is that most things in your life – good and bad – are your fault. The sooner you realize that, the better things will be. Here’s how to cultivate an active mindset and take control of your life. | Continue reading
All that we write about, think about, and strive for at Farnam Street draws inspiration from one of these five principles: Direction Over Speed, Live Deliberately, Thoughtful Opinions Held Loosely, Principles Outlive Tactics, and Own Your Actions. | Continue reading
The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That's because they are reductions of what they represent. If a map were to represent the territory with perfect fidelity, it would no longer be a reduction and thus would no longer be useful to us. | Continue reading
The filing cabinet of knowledge stored in Warren Buffet’s brain has helped make him the most successful investor of our time. But it takes much more than reading a lot. In this article, learn how to create your own “snowball effect” to compound what you know into opportunity. | Continue reading
Finding more time to read is easy. I'll show you how busy people find time to read and continuously learn without sacrificing what matters in life. | Continue reading
Inefficient does not mean ineffective, and it is certainly not the same as lazy. You get things done – just not in the most effective way possible. You’re a bit sloppy, and use more energy. But don’t feel bad about it. There is real value in not being the best. | Continue reading
Why did Homo sapiens diverge from the rest of the animal kingdom and go on to dominate the earth? Communication? Cooperation? According to best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari, that barely scratches the surface. | Continue reading
We can learn valuable lessons from the life of Samuel Andrews. Haven’t ever heard of him? There’s a reason. He was John D. Rockefeller’s right-hand man, and stood to become one of the world’s richest men. But then something got in the way. | Continue reading
If luck is the cause for a person's success, why are so many so lucky time and time again? Learn how to create your own luck by being intelligently prepared. | Continue reading
Stupidity is overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information. Here are seven situational factors that compromise your cognitive ability and result in increased odds of stupidity. | Continue reading
We read for the same reasons that we have conversations — to enrich our lives.Reading helps us to think, feel, and reflect — not only upon ourselves and others but also our relationship with the world. | Continue reading
The Feynman Technique is a mental model that helps you learn faster and increases retention. Read this article to supercharge your learning. | Continue reading
We are not taught how to learn in school, we are taught how to pass tests. The spacing effect is a far more effective way to learn and retain information that works with our brain instead of against it. Find out how to use it here. | Continue reading
Just like the value of money compounds over time, our habits compound as well -- both good AND bad. Here's how tiny positive changes can yield massive rewards. | Continue reading
Many of us think of love and happiness as an object – a thing to obtain. And once we have it, we’re scared to let it go. But there’s a better way to look at it – and even create more of it, without fear of loss. | Continue reading
We look at how reinforcement and incentives shape our actions and how we can use these tools effectively with others. | Continue reading
The 2nd law of thermodynamics says that all things move toward chaos and disorder. Our bodies, our relationships, our businesses. Are we doomed to simply accept it? Maybe not... | Continue reading
When people are rude, our ego demands we respond in kind with a quick comeback or snide remark. If we give in, we might feel better in the short term, but pay a huge price in the long run. There’s a much better way to diffuse the situation, (and get what you want.) | Continue reading
Farnam Street helps you understand how the world works, make better decisions, and live a meaningful life. Our topics span history, philosophy, science, mental models, and more. | Continue reading
Sometimes we make decisions based on how they will look to others rather than whether or not they will produce the best outcomes. This article looks at why we tend to do that, and what we can do instead. | Continue reading
People are obsessed with the future. How will it look? How will it change? But these are the wrong questions. By knowing what will stay the same, we’ll know where to double down on our efforts and our energy. | Continue reading
Reading more isn’t helpful unless you have a system to remember what you’re reading and use it to make better decisions, avoid problems, and live a more meaningful life. | Continue reading