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Dangerous Feelings
The more extreme the outcome, the less likely you can apply its lessons to your own life, because the more likely the outcome was influenced by extreme ends of luck or risk.
Morgan Housel • The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
Robert Burgelman once observed to a classroom full of students in 1982 (of which I was one), the greatest danger in business and life lies not in outright failure but in achieving success without understanding why you were successful in the first place.
Jim Collins • Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
A good hint to the presence of leverage is the possibility of failure. Upside must be balanced by downside, so if there is big potential for gain there must also be a terrifying possibility of loss. CEOs, stars, fund managers, and athletes all live with the sword hanging over their heads; the moment they start to suck, they're out. If you're in a j... See more
Paul Graham • How to Make Wealth
It gets dangerous when the taste of having more—more money, more power, more prestige—increases ambition faster than satisfaction. In that case one step forward pushes the goalpost two steps ahead. You feel as if you’re falling behind, and the only way to catch up is to take greater and greater amounts of risk.
Morgan Housel • The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
When things are going extremely well, realize it’s not as good as you think. You are not invincible, and if you acknowledge that luck brought you success then you have to believe in luck’s cousin, risk, which can turn your story around just as quickly.