# Building judgment

There’s no shortcut to smart. ⁸⁶⁸

# Speed vs velocity

The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. ⁸⁸⁰ Picking the direction you’re heading in for every decision is far, far more important than how much force you apply. Just pick the right direction to start walking in, and start walking. ⁸⁸¹

# How to think clearly

# Independent thought

Almost all biases are time-saving heuristics. For important decisions, discard memory and identity, and focus on the problem. ⁹⁵⁹

Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves. ⁹²⁵ Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority. ⁸⁹⁴

If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. ⁸⁹²

If you can be more right and more rational, you’re going to get nonlinear returns in your life. Decision-making is everything. ⁹⁸⁰

[How do] you make sure you’re dealing with reality when you’re making decisions? By not having a strong sense of self or judgments or mind presence. ⁸⁹⁵

# Mental struggle

The “monkey mind” will always respond with this regurgitated emotional response to what it thinks the world should be. ⁸⁹⁶

What you feel tells you nothing about the facts—it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts. ⁹¹⁷

The moment of [[suffering]]—when you’re in pain—is a moment of truth. ⁹⁰² [We’re] still wishing reality was different. The problem isn’t reality. The problem is [our] desire is colliding with reality and preventing [us] from seeing the truth, no matter how much you [don't like] it. ⁹¹¹

# Solitude

It’s only after you’re bored [that] you have the great ideas. ⁹²²

If you don’t have a day or two every week in your calendar where you’re not always in meetings, and you’re not always busy, then you’re not going to be able to think. ⁹¹⁹

# Collect mental models

If you go to the library and there’s a book you cannot understand, you have to dig down and say, “What is the foundation required for me to learn this?” Foundations are super important. ³⁶⁴

A lousy way to [think] is “X happened in the past, therefore X will happen in the future.” It’s too based on specific circumstances. What you want [are] principles. You want mental models. ⁹⁸⁴

# MODEL: Inversion

Being successful is about not making mistakes. It’s not about having correct judgment. It’s about avoiding incorrect judgments. ¹⁰⁰⁰

# MODEL: The principal-agent problem

If you want it done, then go. And if not, then send.

―Julius Caesar

What Caesar meant was, if you want it done right, then you have to go yourself and do it. When you are the principal, then you are the owner—you care, and you will do a great job. When you are the agent and you are doing it on somebody else’s behalf, you can do a bad job. You just don’t care. You optimize for yourself rather than for the principal’s assets. ¹⁰¹²

The more closely you can tie someone’s compensation to the exact value they’re creating, the more you turn them into a principal, and the less you turn them into an agent. ¹⁰¹⁶

# MODEL: Can’t decide? The answer is no.

The reason is, modern society is full of options. ¹⁰⁴⁶

When you choose something, you get locked in for a long time. Starting a business may take ten years. You start a relationship that will be five years or maybe more. You move to a city for ten to twenty years. These are very, very long-lived decisions. It’s very, very important we only say yes when we are pretty certain. You’re never going to be absolutely certain, but you [need] to be very certain. ¹⁰⁴⁹

# MODEL: Hard choices, easy life

If you’re evenly split on a difficult decision, take the path more painful in the short term. ¹⁰⁵⁵ Most of the gains in life come from [[suffering]] in the short term so you can get paid in the long term. ¹⁰⁶³

If two [choices] are even and one has short-term pain, that path has long-term gain associated. With the law of compound interest, long-term gain is what you want to go toward. Your brain is overvaluing the side with the short-term happiness and trying to avoid the one with short-term pain. ¹⁰⁵⁹ You have to cancel the tendency out ... by leaning into the pain. ¹⁰⁶³

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

―Jerzy Gregorek, from alcoholic to 4-time weightlifting world champion

# Learn to love to read

The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. ³⁵⁸ If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. ¹¹⁵⁰

Most people don’t read an hour a day. Most people, I think, read a minute a day or less. ¹⁰⁹⁷ Knowledge is not about “educated” vs. “uneducated.” It’s about “likes to read” and “doesn’t like to read.” ¹¹²¹

To start, read what you love until you love to read. ¹⁰⁸³

Then read the greats in math, science, and philosophy. Ignore your contemporaries and news. Avoid tribal identification. Put truth above social approval. ¹¹²⁴

You must routinely use all the easy-to-learn concepts from the freshman course in every basic subject.

― Charlie Munger

When you’re reading a book and you’re confused, that confusion is similar to the pain you get in the gym when you’re working out. But you’re building mental muscles instead of physical muscles. ¹¹²⁸