Mental Models, Chow Yong Han, Page 7

Your practice has to be at a ‘just right’ level

(Excerpt from Atomic Habits by James Clear) The human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty. If you love tennis and try to play a serious match against a four-year-old, you...

October 27, 2019| Yin Yang Read More

Good habits are hard because doing them suck a lot of energy and we are energy misers

(Excerpt from Atomic Habits by James Clear) Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it whenever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort, which states that when deciding between two...

October 26, 2019| Resistance, Via Negativa Read More

Why early civilisations prospered in Europe and Asia

(Extracted from Atomic Habits by James Clear) The primary axis of the Americas runs from north to south. That is, the landmass of North and South America tends to be tall and thin rather than wide and fat. The same...

October 26, 2019| Nonlinearity, Resistance, Structure drives behaviour Read More

Find a career with compounding effect

(Extracted from How To Be Successful by Sam Altman) You also want to be an exponential curve yourself—you should aim for your life to follow an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. It’s important to move...

October 25, 2019| Nonlinearity Read More

You cannot improve much in a club whom you are a member of

I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members. Max Groucho...

October 23, 2019| Inversion Read More

Obstacles exist to stop weak people from progressing

(Extracted from The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday) There is an old Zen story about a king whose people had grown soft and entitled. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he hoped to teach them a lesson. His...

October 21, 2019| Resistance Read More

Avoid expiring knowledge

(Extracted from Farnam Street – Compounding Knowledge) While most of us focus on consuming information that we won’t care about next month, let alone next year, Buffett focused on knowledge and companies that...

October 12, 2019| Half Life Read More

Cultural programming

(Extracted from Atomic Habits by James Clear) We don’t choose our earliest habits, we imitate them. We follow the script handed down by our friends and family, our church or school, our local community and...

October 8, 2019| Structure drives behaviour Read More

You can lose money even in the best performing fund

(Extracted from innovativewealth) Fidelity Investments conducted a study on their Magellan fund from 1977-1990, during Peter Lynch’s tenure. His average annual return during this period was 29%. This is a remarkable...

October 8, 2019| Investing, Path Dependence Read More

Fixing problems you previously didn’t know you had

(Extracted from Bloomberg on Bloomberg) Keeping serviceable what you’ve built is a never-ending process. Every day, something you never thought could go wrong, does. So every day plus one, you fix a problem you...

October 4, 2019| Entropy Read More