To make things simple, I have set myself the following rules: In situations where the possible consequences are large (i.e., important personal or business decisions), I try to be as reasonable and rational as possible when choosing. I take out my list of errors and check them off one by one, just like a pilot does. I’ve created a handy checklist d

Evolutionary psychology is still mostly a theory, but a very convincing one at that. It explains the majority of flaws, though not all of them. Consider the following statement: “Every Hershey bar comes in a brown wrapper. Thus, every candy bar in a brown wrapper must be a Hershey bar.” Even intelligent people are susceptible to this flawed conclus

In our hunter-gatherer past, activity paid off more often than reflection did. Lightning-fast reactions were vital, and long ruminations were ruinous. If your hunter-gatherer buddies suddenly bolted, it made sense to follow suit—regardless of whether a saber-toothed tiger or a boar had startled them. If you failed to run away, and it turned out to

Thinking is a biological phenomenon. Evolution has shaped it just as it has the forms of animals or the colors of flowers. Suppose we could go back fifty thousand years, grab hold of an ancestor, and bring him back with us into the present. We send him to the hairdresser and put him in a Hugo Boss suit. Would he stand out on the street? No. Of cour

In the 1960s, psychologists began to do away with Freud’s claims and to examine our thinking, decisions, and actions scientifically. The result was a cold theory of irrationality that states: Thinking is in itself not pure, but prone to error. This affects everyone. Even highly intelligent people fall into the same cognitive traps. Likewise, errors

In conclusion: If you take your problem to an expert, don’t expect the overall best solution. Expect an approach that can be solved with the expert’s tool kit. The brain is not a central computer. Rather, it is a Swiss Army knife with many specialized tools. Unfortunately, our “pocketknives” are incomplete. Given our life experiences and our profes

How do you curb envy? First, stop comparing yourself to others. Second, find your “circle of competence” and fill it on your own. Create a niche where you are the best. It doesn’t matter how small your area of mastery is. The main thing is that you are king of the castle.

Whether we like it or not, we are puppets of our emotions. We make complex decisions by consulting our feelings, not our thoughts. Against our best intentions, we substitute the question, “What do I think about this?” with “How do I feel about this?” So, smile! Your future depends on it.

So who is safe from motivation crowding? This tip should help: Do you know any private bankers, insurance agents, or financial auditors who do their jobs out of passion or who believe in a higher mission? I don’t. Financial incentives and performance bonuses work well in industries with generally uninspiring jobs—industries where employees aren’t p