They consistently do simple things that matters most. <ol><li>Charlie Munger: Analyze what can go wrong instead of what can go right.</li><li>Warren Buffet: Use checklists to avoid stupid mistakes.</li><li>Ray Dalio: Learn how to think independently so you can be smarter than everyone else.</li><li>Jeff Bezos: Invest in what will NOT change instead of only what will change.</li><li>Steve Jobs: Use storytelling to make your vision more compelling; not mission-speaks.</li><li>Reid Hoffman: Build deep long-term relationships that give you insider knowledge.</li><li>Elon Musk: Use decision trees to make better decisions.</li><li>Sara Blakely: Train yourself to love failure rather than to fear it.</li></ol>

8 Unique things

It is to think through what can go wrong because things can go wrong no matter how smart and hardworking you are.Being both pessimistic and optimistic is better than just being optimistic. One of the best ways to win is not to lose.

Inversion

"Invert, always invert: Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don’t we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead — through sloth, envy, resentment, self-pity, entitlement, all the mental habits of self-defeat. Avoid these qualities and you will succeed. Tell me where I’m going to die so I don’t go there."

<ol><li>List the ways the project could fail</li><li>Assign a probability to each possibility</li><li>Prioritize actions that can be taken to avoid failure</li></ol>

Pre-mortem process to use Inversion

We must use it to avoid stupid mistakes. People, especially smart people, make them over and over. Ignorant mistakes happen when you don’t know better. Stupid mistakes happen when you do know better.

Checklists

"We try more to profit from always remembering the obvious than from grasping the esoteric."

<ol><li>Brainstorm. Dream up as many possible solutions as you can. This helps you avoid <a href="http://snip.ly/9JYS">availability bias</a>, which often results in us choosing the first solution that comes to mind rather than the best solution.</li><li>Test. Test as many potential solutions as you can afford to. This avoids the <a href="http://snip.ly/S56h">confirmation bias</a> of rationalizing the one solution you chose.</li><li>Evaluate. Have a minimum success criteria for each experiment. This allows you to avoid doubling down on bad ideas that aren’t working in an effort to recoup <a href="http://snip.ly/JUMT">sunk costs</a>.</li><li>Learn. Dive deeply into the data and learn from EVERY experiment, not just the one that worked best. Avoid taking mistakes personally and feeling shame over something that did not work.</li></ol>

Problem-solving checklist

The key to having enduring, extraordinary performance is to do what others won’t or can’t AND to be right.It requires:<ul><li>Courage to stand up against the herd when you’re right and everyone else is wrong</li><li>Access to or understanding of information that other people don’t have</li><li>Unique ways of analyzing that information</li></ul>

Independent Thinking

"You can’t make money agreeing with the consensus view."

"Whenever you’re betting against the consensus there’s a significant probability you’re going to be wrong, so you have to be humble."

Practices daily comfort zone challenges.

Standing up against the herd

<ul><li>Build deep relationships with people who have accomplished the goals you want to accomplish. By building relationships based on mutual trust and respect, where others want you to succeed, people share information they never would publicly. For more on this strategy, read <a href="http://www.inc.com/michael-simmons/what-self-made-billionaire-reid-hoffman-does-differently.html">Reid Hoffman’s strategy</a>.</li><li>Learn from other fields and bring the insights into your own. Most people focus on learning about their own field, even though other fields have proven insights that are applicable. </li><li>Build a lab, not an experiment. Entrepreneurs who can conduct more experiments will discover more new data and therefore have a big advantage. These entrepreneurs look at their business as a lab where they constantly run experiments. Many entrepreneurs fail here because they look at their business as one big experiment to test just one idea.</li><li>Be good at pulling out the wisdom of others. Many successful people are not able to articulate how they do what they do. They just do it. Asking the right questions can help bring to the surface this tacit knowledge. One way that famous technology investor, Peter Thiel, uncovers this knowledge is by asking the founders he backs <a href="http://onforb.es/1SEvzZE">what they strongly believe that no one else does</a>.</li></ul>

Developing an information advantage

Developing an analytical advantage

Find and focus on what does not change. Become the best in one core area by continually investing in it over time, rather than jumping from trend to trend and starting over each time.

Invest in what will NOT change

Become the best in one core area by continually investing in it over time, rather than jumping from trend to trend and starting over each time.

Invest in one core area

Use storytelling to make your vision more compelling. According to <a href="http://snip.ly/rL7f">academic studies on storytelling</a>, great stories transport others into a whole other world and, in doing so, alter their beliefs, cause a loss of access to real-world facts, evoke emotions, and significantly reduce their ability to detect inaccuracies.

Make a vivid image of your vision

1–800-GOT-JUNK strategy <ul><li>Retreat: First, grab a notebook and find a quiet space where you don’t have any distractions from your daily life.</li><li>Visualize: Transplant yourself five years into the future. See yourself looking around at your life and your business. Imagine that you’re really in that place where the future HAS already happened. For example, if you have a five-year old child, imagine your child is now ten. Then, imagine yourself five years older.</li><li>Ask: Once you’ve transported yourself to that place, ask yourself some questions that will help you “crystal ball” the future. Here are some key questions to ask yourself:</li></ul> - What is your top-line revenue?- How many people are on your team?- How would your people describe the culture of your company when talking to a family member?- What is the press saying about your business? Be as specific as possible: what would your local paper say about your company? What would your favorite magazine say?- What do your people love about your vision and where the company is headed?- How would a customer describe their experience with you? What would they say to their best friend?- What accomplishment are you most proud of? What accomplishment are your people most proud of?- What do you do better than anyone else on the planet?- Describe your office environment in detail.- Describe your service area. Who are your customers and how do they feel?

Turn Your Vision Into A Detailed Story And Picture

<a href="http://onforb.es/1HXEzsp">Many people work with the same people over and over in their careers</a>. In the information age, one of the best ways to get information is not from just being better at searching Google, it’s from learning how to build a network and get the information you need through that network.

Build deep and long-term relationships

is the information that only exists in people’s heads. Getting access to this ‘dark net’ information from people who have accomplished what you want to accomplish is extremely valuable and will help you <a href="http://onforb.es/1IZl9nc">think independently</a>. The ‘dark net’ includes people’s lessons learned and hacks, topics that are too sensitive to talk about because they make someone look bad, and tacit knowledge (knowledge that people have but aren’t able to articulate)

Dark net

"Ten extremely informed individuals who are happy to share what they know with you when you engage them can tell you a lot more than a thousand people you only know in the most superficial way"

<ol><li>Be extremely picky about whom you spend a lot of time around.</li><li>Invest the time.</li></ol>

Two keys on building long-term relationships

<ul><li>They <a href="http://onforb.es/1OQLxlx">value relationships over pure achievement</a> and are willing and able to invest in the relationship</li><li>They are <a href="http://onforb.es/1H92ipy">givers</a></li><li>They are open to being <a href="http://bit.ly/1OQLBBU">vulnerable</a> and to sharing their true experiences</li><li>I genuinely enjoy spending time with them</li><li>They are constantly growing and learning</li><li>They share <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsimmons/2014/02/26/the-most-important-decision-you-need-to-make-when-building-a-network/">similar values</a></li><li>They’re also able to invest time in maintaining and growing the relationship.</li></ul>

Characteristics for filtering professional network

Decision trees are particularly useful for avoiding stupid risks and big bets that aren’t likely to succeed.

Use Decision Trees

<ul><li>Understand the different outcomes that could happen (both positive and negative)</li><li>Calculate the expected return or loss of each outcome:</li><li>Attach a probability to each outcome</li><li>Understanding the magnitude of the return or loss</li><li>Multiple the probability by the magnitude (probability of winning * value of win) — (probability of losing * cost of the loss)</li><li>Add up and subtract all of the expected returns and losses</li></ul>

How to use decision trees

The only way to protect yourself from failure is to not try, or to not try anything hard at least, both of which are sure and direct routes to mediocrity. The only way you can achieve anything big is by daring to try big things, and if you do that failure is inevitable.

Train yourself to love failure

"Failure for me became not trying, versus the outcome."

"If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."

Fascinated by this question for my whole career as a serial entrepreneur and writer, I’ve read more billionaire entrepreneur biographies than I can count, researched what they have in common, and met…

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8 Things That Self-Made Billionaires Do Differently

<ul><li>Good conversations require a give and take, just like keeping a ball in the air during a game of catch.</li><li>Great conversations have diverse and interesting topics.</li><li>Great conversations require active listening.</li><li>Great conversations are safe place.</li></ul>

Traits of a great conversation

Traits of a good conversation

A good conversation;<ul><li>requires a give and take, just like keeping a ball in the air during a game of catch.</li><li>involve active listeners.</li><li>contains a variety of topics.</li><li>requires the conversationalist to adapt to non-verbal cues.</li><li>is a safe place.</li></ul>

<ol><li>Listen actively.</li><li>Develop your breadth of knowledge.</li><li>Adapt to one's conversation.</li><li>Discuss, not debate to foster a positive atmosphere.</li></ol>

Four habits of a great conversationalist

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said"

To converse well is a skill we all need to learn for better engagement and rewarding experience in any conversation — being a good conversationalist makes a huge difference in so many areas of your…

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4 Habits That Can Help You Become a Great Conversationalist

we should focus on three important things: savings, investments and bills. Save much as you can, Find opportunities to invest in appreciating assets and revise your bills time to time. <ol><li>Know where your money is going.</li><li>Invest in assets.</li><li>Make financial freedom your top priority.</li></ol>

Advices

"It’s not how much money you make. It’s how much money you keep."

Review your monthly spending at least once in a month.<ul><li>Look at all your bills instead of throwing them away.</li><li>Save before you spend.</li><li>Revise your monthly subscriptions from time to time.</li></ul>

Know where your money is going

Truth about assets. You pay for something and its value increases in a particular amount of time and you will be repaid with the greater amount than what you paid.

Invest in assets

Steve Adcock was a former software developer who saved 70% of his six-figure income and retired at the age of 35. When he quit his job in 2016 he had a net savings of $1 million in his account. In…

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3 Wealth Advice from a Millionaire Who Retired at the Age of 35

It's his “learning transfer” superpower.

Secret behind the Musk's success

<ul><li>Research suggests that turning your knowledge into deeper, abstract principles facilitates learning transfer.</li><li>Research also suggests that one technique is particularly powerful for helping people intuit underlying principles. This technique is called, “contrasting cases.”</li></ul>

Science behind "learning transfer"

"It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto."

By looking at lots of diverse cases when we learn anything, we begin to intuit what is essential and even craft our own unique combinations.

Contrasting cases

Keith Holyoak, a UCLA professor of psychology and one of the world’s leading thinkers on analogical reasoning, recommends people ask themselves the following two questions in order to hone their skills: “What does this remind me of?” and “Why does it remind me of it?”By constantly looking at objects in your environment and material you read and asking yourself these two questions, you build the muscles in your brain that help you make connections across traditional boundaries.

How to get better at learning transfer?

Here are some entrepreneurial lessons founders can learn from Elon Musk.

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What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Tesla Founder Elon Musk

The Universal Formula for Doing Big Things

The thing that will give you a rush of accomplishment when you complete it, and make you want to keep going the next day. It's a miniaturized version of your goal.When you complete your MVM, you feel a thrill that’s similar to the one you’d get if you had achieved your end goal.

Minimum Viable Motivator

<ol><li>Take a big, daunting goal and break it up into smaller parts. Choose distinct and simple actions that, when put together, will build a desired habit. Make sure each action seems either easy or pleasurable enough to you that you won’t use, “It’s too hard” as an excuse not to do it. Your MVM might seem stupidly simple to you — for instance, if you are trying to build a reading habit, you might set a goal to read for five minutes straight.</li><li>Once you complete your MVM, you’re done, even if you think you could do a bit more. Save that enthusiasm; it will come in handy to keep you motivated tomorrow.</li><li>Celebrate! This is an important step. After achieving each MVM, act as if you have achieved the entire goal. You’re a runner! You’re a reader! After all, you’re not wrong; you took the necessary step today. Don’t cheat yourself by dwelling on the fact that there’s still more to do.</li><li>After a while, you can adjust the difficulty of the tasks, and build habits. If your MVMs seem to be getting too taxing, make them a bit easier for a while. The point is to outsmart yourself.</li></ol>

How to focus on the MVM

The 'MVM,' or minimum viable motivator, is the smallest thing you can do to move toward a more difficult goal.

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A Universal Formula for Doing Big Things

This leads us to serious logic error when we make a decision.Ask this to avoid this bias. What’s the data that’s not present?

The Perils of "Survivorship Bias"

Survivorship bias is an error that arises because we look at the data we have but ignore the selection process that led us to have those data.

Survivorship Bias

Think about where the data comes from. Think about what the process that generated the data is.

How can people avoid this?

Scientific American is the essential guide to the most awe-inspiring advances in science and technology, explaining how they change our understanding of the world and shape our lives.

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The Perils of &ldquo;Survivorship Bias&rdquo;

<ol><li>Waking up early gives your brain a competitive edge because it makes it easier for you to get into a flow state.</li><li>Balance your mind, health, heart, and soul for true self-mastery.</li><li>To not waste the first hour of the day, use the 20/20/20 rule; dedicate 20 minutes to exercise, reflection, and learning each for productive days.</li></ol>

Waking up early gets you a huge advantage

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Bill Fruit