Strong Feelings Make Weak Evidence Feel Strong
High emotion lowers your evidence threshold — when certainty feels strongest, scrutiny matters most.
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Self-awareness
You can't change what you don't see. Self-awareness is the unglamorous skill of noticing your own patterns — what triggers you, what drains you, which stories you tell yourself. The advice here helps you observe yourself honestly without drowning in self-analysis.
When a Metric Becomes a Target, It Stops Being a Good Metric
Goodhart's Law: people optimise the number, not the thing the number stood for — pair every metric with a guardrail and treat it as a thermometer, not a steering wheel.
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Your Most Recent Experience Is Not the Most Important One
Recency bias makes the latest event dominate your thinking — older data is often more representative.
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"It's Natural" Doesn't Mean It's Good
Natural is a description of origin, not a certificate of quality.
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You Assume Others See the World the Way You Do
The false consensus effect makes you overestimate how many people share your views — ask instead of assuming.
7
Knowing Something Makes It Hard to Imagine Not Knowing It
The curse of knowledge makes experts forget what confusion feels like — always start from the listener's level.
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Familiarity Feels Like Truth
Repetition makes claims feel true — but familiarity is not evidence.
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You Overvalue What You Already Have
The endowment effect makes you overvalue what you own — ownership is not the same as worth.
6
"It Can't Happen Here" Is How It Happens Here
Normalcy bias makes stability feel permanent — prepare for disruption while things are still calm.
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A Title Doesn't Make Someone Right
Authority bias makes us trust titles over reasoning — evaluate the argument, not the resume.
10
Not Every Gain Requires Someone Else's Loss
Zero-sum thinking limits you — in many situations, both sides can win if you look for it.
9
How the Question Is Asked Changes the Answer
The framing effect makes identical information feel different — notice who is framing the question and how.
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"I Knew It All Along" Is Almost Always a Lie
Hindsight bias rewrites your memory — you didn't predict it, you just remember it that way.
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Nobody Is Watching You as Closely as You Think
The spotlight effect makes you think everyone noticed — they almost certainly didn't.
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Happening Together Does Not Mean One Caused the Other
Two things happening together does not prove one causes the other — always look for hidden third factors.
6
Bad News Is Stickier Than Good News
Negativity bias makes one bad thing outweigh many good ones — correct for it deliberately.
5
A Charming Person Can Still Be Wrong
The halo effect makes us assume that likeable people are also right — separate charm from competence.
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One Example Is Not a Pattern
A single vivid story is not enough to establish a pattern — don't generalize from one case.
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