This is the puzzle of trying to understand randomness: Real patterns are mixed in with random events, so it is extraordinarily difficult for us to differentiate between chance and skill. Did you arrive early to work because you left on time, planned ahead, and drove carefully? Or were you just in the right place at the right time? Most people would choose the former answer without a second thought - without even acknowledging the latter was an option. As we try to learn from the past, we form patterns of thinking based on our experiences, not realizing that the things that happened have an unfair advantage over the things that didn’t.

But no matter how intensely we desire certainty, we should understand that whether because of our limits or randomness or future unknowable confluences of events, something will inevitably come, unbidden, through that door. Some of it will be uplifting and inspiring, and some of it will be disastrous.

A characteristic of creative people is that they imagine making the impossible possible. That imagining - dreaming, noodling, audaciously rejecting what is (for the moment) true - is the way we discover what is new or important. Steve understood the value of science and law, but he also understood that complex systems respond in nonlinear, unpredictable ways. And that creativity, at its best, surprises us all.

Clear Thinking- Shane Parrish

Preface

That night I started asking myself questions that I’d continue exploring for the next decade. How can we get better at reasoning? Why do people make bad decisions? Why do some people consistently get better results than others who have the same information? How can I be right more often, and decrease the probability of a bad outcome when lives are on the line?

And because they’re ready, their confidence doesn’t crack. The venture capitalist Josh Wolfe likes to say, “Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure.”

The bottom line: people who think about what is likely to go wrong and determine the actions they can take are more likely to succeed when things don’t go according to plan.

A smart way to assess your options is by using the following principle.

The Second-Level Thinking Principle: Ask yourself, “And then what?