Self-knowledge isn’t limited just to hard skills, though. It’s also about knowing when you’re vulnerable to your defaults—the kinds of situations where circumstances do the thinking for you.

reluctance to try new products is often due to the uncertainty and effort involved in evaluating them. To combat this, companies often offer free samples to customers, which serves as a low-risk way for them to try a new product and evaluate its quality without the fear of disappointment.

Each moment puts you in a better or worse position to handle the future. It’s that positioning that eventually makes life easier or harder.

Doing something different means you might underperform, but it also means you might change the game entirely.

public statements can create inertia. Putting something on the record establishes expectations along with social pressure to meet those expectations. When new information challenges one of our statements, we might instinctively dismiss it and emphasize the old information that supported it. We want to be consistent with what we said. Changing our

One reason we resist change is that keeping things the way they are requires almost no effort. This helps explain why we get complacent. It takes a lot of effort to build momentum but far less to maintain it. Once something becomes “good enough,” we can stop the effort and still get decent results. The inertia default leverages our desire to stay

There are three problems with covering up mistakes. The first is that you can’t learn if you ignore your mistakes. The second is that hiding them becomes a habit. The third is that the cover-up makes a bad situation worse.

Bad habits are easy to acquire when there is a delay between action and consequence.

He wanted to show others his value and importance. He wanted others to see him the way he saw himself. When they didn’t, he stopped exercising judgment, and ended up going down in history for all the wrong reasons. Who hasn’t found themselves in a similar situation? Someone close to you doesn’t appreciate you the way you want to be appreciated.