Strong Opinions, Loosely Held

Your capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn faster than the environment changes.

Malcolm Knowles's principles of adult learning: self-direction, experience as resource, readiness, problem-centered orientation, intrinsic motivation.

Amishi Jha's research: attention is a finite, depletable, but trainable cognitive resource — short daily mindfulness measurably improves it.

Approach a situation as if you knew nothing.

Unusual or bizarre material is more memorable than common material.

Hierarchy of cognitive learning: Remember → Understand → Apply → Analyze → Evaluate → Create. Benjamin Bloom, 1956 (revised 2001).

Where, how, what — in that order.

A single story used as proof of a general claim.

A persuasive message produces the opposite of its intended effect.

Fixed compliance costs scale punitively for small firms and entrench large ones.

Munger's principle: the surest way to get something is to deserve it.

Probability × payoff, summed across outcomes.

Outcome-only goals undervalue the process that compounds into mastery.

We favor members of our own group over outsiders.

Daniel Siegel's term for the capacity to perceive your own and others' minds — integrating insight and empathy.

DAU/MAU goals override product safety and wellbeing investments.

Overestimating our ability to control future impulses.

Whether the room stands depends on thresholds and who can see whom — not on quality alone.