·4 min read
Career Change at 40: A Decision Framework for Leaving or Staying
A calm decision framework for career change at 40, separating growth, burnout, money risk, sunk cost, and fear of starting over.
Sunk Cost ReleaseWriting
Thinking clearly about decisions
Practical essays on cognitive biases, mental frameworks, and the art of deciding well.
Premortem AnalysisSecond-Order ThinkingInversionLoss Aversion ReframeSunk Cost ReleaseCircle of CompetenceFirst Principles Thinking
·4 min read
Cognitive Bias Checklist: 8 Traps to Check Before a Big Decision
A practical cognitive bias checklist for checking confirmation bias, sunk cost, loss aversion, hindsight, and overthinking before a big decision.
Inversion·4 min read
How to Choose Between Two Jobs: A Decision Matrix for Offers
A practical decision matrix for choosing between two jobs, comparing salary, manager quality, growth, risk, energy, and long-term fit.
Second-Order Thinking·4 min read
Impact Effort Matrix: How to Choose What to Do Next
A practical impact effort matrix for choosing your next move, prioritizing decisions, and spotting hidden bias before action.
Second-Order Thinking·4 min read
Premortem Template: Find the Failure Before It Happens
A practical premortem template for spotting risks before a decision, project, career move, or business idea fails.
Premortem Analysis·5 min read
Should I Quit My Job? A Decision Framework for Leaving or Staying
A calm decision framework for deciding whether to quit your job, stay, or take a smaller next step without letting fear or sunk cost decide.
Sunk Cost Release·4 min read
Confirmation Bias in Decision Making: How to Test Your Own Logic
Confirmation bias makes preferred options feel more logical than they are. Learn how to test your own reasoning before a big decision.
Inversion·4 min read
Decision Journal Template: Record Your Reasoning
A practical decision journal template for recording your reasoning before hindsight bias rewrites the story.
Premortem Analysis·4 min read
Decision Matrix Template: A Better Way to Compare Hard Choices
A practical decision matrix template for comparing hard choices, plus the hidden biases a static scorecard can miss.
Second-Order Thinking·4 min read
Hindsight Bias: Why Your Past Decisions Look Obvious Later
Hindsight bias makes past decisions feel obvious after the outcome is known. Learn how to record your reasoning before memory rewrites the story.
Premortem Analysis·4 min read
How to Stop Overthinking a Big Decision
A practical framework for escaping decision paralysis: define the real decision, separate facts from assumptions, name the fear, and choose the next clear step.
Premortem Analysis·3 min read
When You Can Trust an Expert's Intuition (And When You Can't)
Skilled intuition only works in regular environments: chess, nurses, firefighters. In zero-validity worlds like the stock market, trust the data, not your gut.
Circle of Competence·3 min read
The Gambler's Fallacy: Why Streaks Lie (My Mom's Mahjong Lesson)
My mom calls her mahjong winning streaks lucky. Monte Carlo gamblers lost millions doing the same in 1913. Why the gambler's fallacy keeps tricking your bets.
Second-Order Thinking·2 min read
Information Asymmetry: Why You Can't Predict the Market
Markets price what we don't know. Chaos theory, the 2008 crash, and the limit of prediction: why staying within your circle of competence beats forecasting.
Circle of Competence·2 min read
The Power of Being Powerless: Why Great Leaders Stay Soft
Lao Tzu, water, and the mentor who only said 'shut up and listen': why the greatest leaders win by being soft. The case for power as service, not control.
Inversion·3 min read
Probability vs Plausibility: How a Good Story Tricks Your Brain
Bayesian thinking shows why a vivid story beats a base rate, and why your conjunction fallacy keeps choosing the wrong answer about a stranger named Karen.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
How to Stop Regret From Destroying Your Future Decisions
Regret is a counterfactual emotion, a punishment we hand ourselves for a road not taken. Why 'what if' destroys decisions, and how to turn it into 'so what'.
Loss Aversion Reframe·2 min read
Paint Your Mirror: Three Habits to Sharpen Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is a mirror you paint with attention. Three habits to keep the reflection honest: read more, judge less, and design a routine you follow.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
The Art of Being Invincible: Strategy, Game Theory, and Why Price Wars Lose
Sun Tzu, Nash equilibrium, and the price war: the art of strategy isn't winning but staying invincible. Why competing on price always leaves both sides poorer.
Second-Order Thinking·5 min read
How to Escape the Sunk Cost Trap in Your Career
Sunk cost fallacy examples from career and life, and how to stop letting past investments decide what your next move should be.
Sunk Cost Release·4 min read
Survivorship Bias and the Hidden Lies in Your Data
Returning bombers showed where to put armour, until Abraham Wald spotted the trap. Survivorship bias quietly shapes the data you trust to make decisions.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
What You See Is All There Is: Kahneman's Trap and How to Beat It
Kahneman's WYSIATI explains why smart people make confident wrong decisions, and how a decision matrix surfaces the blind spots you didn't know you had.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
Confirmation Bias: Why Smart People Read Data Wrong
Confirmation bias quietly distorts how we read data, from giver-vs-taker rankings to billion-dollar education bets. Here is why the elephant is too big.
First Principles Thinking·2 min read
Doubt Your Doubts: A 5-Question Test Before You React
Many of our thoughts are doubts that sprout into whole stories. A five-question test, learned the hard way, helps decide which doubts are worth chasing.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
The Narrative Fallacy: When Good Stories Make Bad Decisions
The narrative fallacy is the cognitive bias that lets a good story stand in for actual evidence. Here is how it shapes our decisions, and our marketing.
First Principles Thinking·3 min read
Premortem: Imagine the Failure Before It Happens
Premortem analysis: imagine the project has already failed, then work backwards to find why. A method for catching overconfidence before it costs you.
Premortem Analysis·3 min read
Trust but Verify: How Givers Can Spot Takers Before Burning Out
Givers earn less, burn out more, and still reach the top of the success ladder. Use sincerity screening to spot takers before you default to generosity.
Inversion