Investor's B.D. Top Tem: #9

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people
in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

9.DEAL AND COMMUNICATE WITH PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY:No person is an island. Learn to understand and motivate others.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #8

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people
in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

8.DON’T BE AFRAID TO INNOVATE; BE DIFFERENT: Following the herd is a sure way to mediocrity.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #7

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

7.FOCUS YOUR TIME AND MONEY:Don’t let other people or things distract you.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #6

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people
in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

6. LEARN TO ANALYZE DETAILS: Get all the facts, all the input. Learn from your mistakes.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #5

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

5.BE PERSISTENT AND WORK HARD: Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #4

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people
in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

4.    NEVER STOP LEARNING: Go back to school or read books. Get training and acquire skills.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #3

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people
in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

3.    TAKE ACTION: Goals are nothing without action. Don’t be afraid to get started now. Just do it.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #2

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

2.    DECIDE UPON YOUR TRUE DREAMS AND GOALS: Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them.

Investor's B.D. Top Ten: #1

Investor’s Business Daily has spent years analyzing leaders and successful people in all walks of life. Most have 10 traits that when combined, can turn dreams into reality.

1.    HOW YOU THINK, IS EVERYTHING:
Always be positive. Think success, not failure. Beware of a negative environment.

Thinking: Post#17 - Final Words

Final Words: Thinking, Fast and Slow is a tour de force of a brilliant man to help us all think better and make sounder decisions in life. It’s the advice a wise grandfather would give to his grandchildren and to his own children…if they would ever listen to him!

Thinking: Post#10 - Speaking Of...

“Speaking of” Parts: Throughout the 5 parts of the book, at the end of each chapter, the author inserts proposed dialogue (“Speaking of…”) that might help the reader better understand the concepts he covers in the book.

Thinking: Post#9 - What You See....

WYSIATI: Jumping to conclusions is, for some people, a national pastime! When we learn something new or meet a new person, System 1 wants to believe them, think the best, and create a narrative consistent with those thoughts. However, System 2’s job is to be in charge of doubting and disbelieving. In essence, System 2 is the checks-and-balances of System 1. Together they help us get things straight. Unfortunately, overload, fatigue, and distraction overtake the power and purpose of System 2, and this safety net does not catch errors of System 1. The Result: We end up believing that what you see is all there is (WYSIATI). Thus, we jump to erroneous conclusions that can lead us to make poor decisions.

Thinking: Post#8 - Anchoring

Anchoring: When a seller puts a number on the table, that number has a powerful anchoring effect on a buyer by setting out the expectation. System 1 wants to believe the number—rationalize it—while System 2 needs to challenge the number. One experiment I’ve seen was when subjects were asked “Is the Mississippi River longer than 500 miles? If so, how long is it?” Estimates range from about 350 to 650 miles. If asked if the river is more or less than 1,000 miles, people give much higher estimates of its length. We tend to get anchored by initial figures.

Thinking: Post#7 - Priming

Priming: Exposure to words prepares our brain to act in accordance with the word. In an experiment called the “Florida Effect,” students exposed to words like aging walked slower and more like older people.  This ideo-motor effect influences action by an idea. Such an effect is a powerful influencer on System 1 thinking, creating biases and inaccurate decisions. For example, if you go shopping when you’re hungry, you’ll tend to buy far more than you need. If you watched “Fast and Furious” and then went out to buy a car, guess what kind of car you might buy—a Prius or a sports car? Reverse priming also exists. We smile when we’re amused, and if we force ourselves to smile, we can make ourselves get more amused. The pencil in the teeth experiment was fascinating as was the British “honesty box” experiment (see pp. 54-55). Putting a pencil in your mouth (laterally) makes you smile, which disposes you to laugh and see more humor in a given situation. The Honesty Box at an English university was put there to pay for tea on the honor system. When a picture of eyes was placed over the box, people gave more money (three times as much $!) than when a picture of flowers was placed over the box. Thus, primed by a set of eyes “watching” them, tea drinkers became more honest.

Thinking: Post#6 - More on System 1 & 2

More on System 1 and System 2 thinking: System 1 generates answers quickly, intuitively. Unfortunately, these answers can be developed by skill or from educated guesses; however, System 1 does not differentiate or “generate a warning signal” to the brain or System 2 when it really knows stuff and when it’s just giving a best guess. This creates real judgment problems. To differentiate which ideas from System 1 are based on skill and which are just best guesses, System 2 has to slow things down and analyze. As we’ve seen, System 1 can overwhelm System 2, which often just passes back these “best guesses” as facts, even potential rules. Thus, System 1 is subject to all kinds of biases like anchoring, priming, etc., and invariably makes bad choices. The antidote for bad decision making is to slow down, challenge, develop checklists (like airline pilots), and create a safe place for people to disagree (elect a devil’s advocate). The Challenger would not have happened if engineers at Morton Thiokol and NASA had slowed their thinking down to deal with the O rings, instead of being pressured by the potential of another launch delay.

Thinking: Post#5 - Econs vs Humans

Econs vs Humans: Traditional economists believe that people are rational, reasonable people not susceptible to the foibles of mere humans. That is to say, traditional economists predict that people will make rational choices. Behavioral economists, like the author and Richard Thaler (U. of Chicago), believe that people make all sorts of decisions with grave impacts which are based on emotion (System 1) and not rational thought (System 2). They argue that the federal government, the state, and other leaders should “nudge” people in the direction of decisions that will help them, such as creating a default selection of a 401K plan or having only opt-out selections for health care or other beneficial choices. This benevolent process is called “libertarian paternalism” and is a subset of the overall process called choice architecture (Richard Thaler). Others in the opposite camp want markets to operate freely and see any intervention as wrongheaded, even immoral (Milton Friedman).

Thinking: Post#4 - Remembering vs Experiencing

Remembering Self vs. Experiencing Self: System 1 has a filter that neglects duration (oblivious to length of time) and focuses on peaks of either pleasure or pain and on how an experience ends (peak-end rule). We may remember an event that had bursts of pleasure and ended well as a great experience. Whereas, if something were actually better, lasted longer, but ended poorly, we remember it as far worse. Thus, our neglect of duration and exaggeration of peaks and ends seriously distort our perception of our memories, which plays tricks on us. This is called “the tyranny of the remembering self.” Essentially we write the narrative of our own life experiences and want them to end well so they’re remembered well. “Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does the living, is like a stranger to me” (p. 390).

Thinking: Post#3 - System 2

System 2 is our deliberate brain. It controls outbursts, rants, and irrational responses. Unfortunately, when we get tired, worn down, or otherwise overwhelmed with work, stress, and mental effort, System 2 yields to its more biased, quick-tempered, and illusive sibling, System 1. Thus, willpower is a limited fount. The author offers a number of simple but powerful experiments to show how “ego depletion” affects System 2 when it’s overwhelmed or tired. Literally our ego is worn down, then we default to such things as deviating from our diet, trying to impress others by overspending, reacting aggressively, and making poorer decisions. Fascinating research shows that System 2 (cognitive thinking) requires more glucose. Experiments with judges show that they are more likely to grant parole (65% of the time) after they have a meal than when they’re hungry (35% of the time)! System 1 is like a nagging child at the supermarket and System 2 like a parent who finally just gives in and says, “Fine.”

Thinking: Post#2 - The Two Systems

The Two Systems: System 1 feeds impressions, intuitions, feelings and reactions to the brain for System 2 to judge—all the while, System 1 prods System 2 to hurry up! When System 2 endorses the suggestions of its fast-moving partner, System 1 takes the approval as law and uses these impressions as hard-core beliefs, heuristics (rules of thumb), and judgments to apply liberally to the world of decisions. Often, in repetitive and familiar situations, this two-system model works well. System 1 submits intuitions to System 2, gets an answer, and then uses that over and over again in similar situations to make better and faster decisions; however, System 1 also creates a variety of its own biases and faulty intuitions which when followed quickly can lead to poor decisions with real impact.

Thinking: Post#1 - Overview

Overview: Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Daniel Kahneman tells us that we use intuition all the time—and often well—to make daily decisions. But sometimes, even at important times, we use intuition and make very bad and harmful decisions. Getting up in age these days, Kahneman appears to have written this opus magnum as a great compilation of his research and that of his much admired academic partner, Amos Teversky (now deceased).  A leader in psychology and specifically decision making and behavioral economics, Kahneman explores two systems of how we think. System 1 is the quick-to-judge, emotional, and intuitive thinking system we all seem to possess and use often. System 2 is the slower, more deliberate and logical kind of thinking we also all possess. Kahneman profiles the amazingly fast and omnipresent power and influence of intuitive thinking…both its profound contribution to daily life and its hidden traps when making big decisions too quickly—fueled by the biases of System 1 thinking. He shows how anchoring, loss aversion, and various cognitive biases can powerfully affect our decision making at home, at work and in the marketplace. At the same time, he introduces us to the slower, more logical, and more deliberate partner, System 2, and how it can be used to moderate, even mitigate, the flaws in the fast-thinking System 1. In essence, he helps us understand when and where to use each of these systems to maximize our outcomes. His bottom line advice: When we make important decisions, we need to slow down.

Happier: Final Post--Meditations

The Final Section of this book contains a series of meditations focused on happiness:
a.    First: Meditating on helping others, which helps us as well. Kindness is essentially reciprocal and self generative.
b.    Happiness Boosters are the second meditation in which the author suggests finding activities throughout the week that boost happiness, such as helping out at your child’s school or joining a friend for a walk.
c.    The third meditation revolves around Appreciative Inquiry—thinking  about and savoring what went well in the past and how it could be applied to the future.
d.    The fourth meditation—Let Your Light Shine. Great quote by Abraham Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”See p. 145 for a great sentence completion exercise.
e.    The fifth meditation—Imagine—is all about perspective. The author offers this reflective exercise: Imagine that you’re 110 years old. Summon up all your wisdom and give advice to yourself at your current age. In other words, what would a wise elder tell you to do, starting today, in order to have a happier, more fulfilled life?
f.    The sixth meditation is Take Your Time. The author quotes a number of psychologists, including Teresa Amabile who says time squeezes creativity into a corner. We lead a way-too-busy life, which produces pressure and decreases happiness and fulfillment. So, take Thoreau’s advice: Simplify! Reflect on what you can take out of your life to give you room to be happier and more creative.
g.    Finally, the seventh meditation—The Happiness Revolution. This reflection is all about putting happiness first and material things (extrinsic rewards) subordinate. Ask questions like: What gives me meaning? What gives me pleasure? What are my strengths?

Final Words: Tal Ben Shahar has been a leader in the happiness revolution. Read the book to get the full force of his wisdom—you’ll be glad you did.

Happier: Post #9- Relationships

Happiness in Relationships: Both Seligman and Diener have discovered that truly happy people have strong close social ties, without exception. “Without friendship, no happiness is possible,” says Aristotle.  Romance is the ultimate form of friendship and therefore sits on the top of all our relationships and rules supreme. Being loved for our conditions—like wealth, fame, or attractiveness—is a conditional, fleeting kind of affiliation. Whereas, being loved for our character, caring, and kindness is unconditional and enduring love. The “circle of creativity” was discovered by psychologist David Winnicott, who found that children played more creatively when in a certain radius of their mothers. Being loved unconditionally creates a safe place for us to be our creative best. We cultivate happiness in a relationship (especially marriage) by knowing and being known. Engaging in activities that help us reveal others and be revealed ourselves creates strong relationships.