The Silver Rule: Why Negative Advice Is Better Than Positive Advice

You probably know the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But it’s very difficult to know exactly how you’d like to be treated at all times. That’s what makes the Golden Rule difficult to follow. The Silver Rule is basically the “Negative” Golden Rule. Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes it as follows: “Do not treat others the way you would not like them to treat you.” This rule is far more useful - let’s see why.

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Availability Bias: Making Decisions Based On Vivid Examples

What you remember most vividly in your past influences your future. The stories, memories, and examples that are easily available to you guide the decisions you make and how you position yourself in the world. This is called “availability bias.” And you can either succumb to this common mental error or learn to use it in your favor…

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What is the Scarcity Principle?

Have you ever gone to buy a product online only to have a ticking timer pop up, counting down the seconds you have left to finish the order? Your heart rate increases. Adrenaline starts pumping through your veins. You rapidly type out your credit card details and wonder how a little timer could have such a dramatic impact on your body… What you’re feeling is the scarcity principle in action.

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Become A Content Curator And Start Building Your Audience Right Now

If you don’t already create content online, you should start now. And the easiest place to start is to become a content curator. A “content creator” creates original content. A “content curator,” though, curates content that’s already out there in the domain, organizes it, shoots it through their unique perspective, and then publishes it to build an audience right now.

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Why You Should Expose Yourself To Positive “Black Swan” Events

To build wealth, you want to expose yourself to situations where uncertainty (unpredictability) is a positive force for you, not a negative one. You want to make bets in areas where surprises push to the upside because of positive Black Swan events.

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Inversion: Problem Solving in Reverse

Inversion is the practice of thinking through problems in reverse. It’s the practice of “inverting” a problem - turning it upside down - to see it from a different perspective. In its most powerful form, inversion is asking how an endeavor could fail, and then being careful to avoid those pitfalls. As Warren Buffett likes to say when it comes to investing: “Rule number one is don’t lose money. Rule number two is don’t forget rule number one.”

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How To Get Rich: Eight “Secrets” From Felix Dennis

At the end of Felix Dennis’s book, How To Get Rich, he outlines eight “secrets” to getting rich. In terms of actionable advice on wealth creation, these are right up there with Naval Ravikant’s must-read How To Get Rich tweetstorm, along with his accompanying podcast episodes. Despite the name, though, the reality is there are no secrets to getting rich. There are only models that push you in the right direction. And these will do just that…

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How To Be An Idea Compounder: Definition, Examples, and More

The ideas you learn compound over time. One idea doesn’t stay as one idea - it gets mixed with other ideas and produces new ideas on top of each other. I call this process idea compounding and those who do this actively idea compounders. An idea compounder is someone who layers ideas on top of each other to find new ideas and ways to apply them.

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The Principal-Agent Problem: Solving It With Incentives

It's hard to get other people to care about what you do. And it's almost impossible if they don't have the same "skin in the game" - if they aren't rewarded or punished directly based on the outcome of their decisions. It turns out this is a very old problem. It's called the principal-agent problem. And if you're an owner or an employee, you have to understand it.

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