The Art of Manliness - #387： Think Like a Poker Player to Make Better Decisions

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00:00:58.240 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. It's been said that

00:01:07.640 life is a series of decisions, but life is complex and filled with randomness and uncertainty. How do

00:01:13.060 you make decisions when one, you don't know everything you need to know to make optimal

00:01:16.220 decisions, and two, the factors influencing your decisions are constantly changing? My guest today

00:01:21.320 suggests thinking like a poker player is the answer. Her name is Annie Duke. She's a former World Series

00:01:26.040 of Poker Champion turned business consultant, and in her book, Thinking in Bets, Making Smarter

00:01:30.120 Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts, she shares insights from her career as a professional

00:01:33.780 poker player on how to make smart decisions in the face of uncertainty. We begin our conversation

00:01:37.820 discussing why life is more like poker than chess and why you should never judge the quality of

00:01:41.840 decision based on the results. She then shares insights on why you need to factor in luck,

00:01:46.000 both good and bad, when you're making decisions and how thinking of your decisions as bets can make you

00:01:50.260 feel more comfortable with uncertainty. Annie and I then discuss some of the biases that prevent

00:01:53.980 humans from thinking probabilistically and why probabilistic thinking can make you more

00:01:57.980 compassionate and humble. She then makes the case that thinking of our political opinions as bets

00:02:02.600 is one way to moderate our increasingly polarized society. We end our conversation discussing how

00:02:07.000 leaders can use the ideas from her book to help the groups they lead make better decisions. This

00:02:11.100 is a fascinating show filled with actionable insights that you can use right away. After the show's

00:02:14.980 over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash thinkinginbets. And Annie joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:02:23.980 All right. Annie Duke, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me on.

00:02:35.580 So you just published a book called Thinking in Bets, Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have

00:02:40.520 All the Facts. And this is a topic that I'm thinking about all the time. Like, how can I make good

00:02:46.260 decisions when I don't know everything? And your book was like paradigm shifting for me. A lot of great

00:02:52.900 insights. Oh, thank you. And I'm being sincere. I mean, it was I've been telling all my friends

00:02:57.360 about this book that they need to check it out. What's interesting, you have an interesting

00:03:00.420 background. You started off when you were in college, you were doing graduate studies, you got

00:03:05.020 a fellowship doing cognitive psychology. But then you took a break from that and had a 20 year career

00:03:11.240 in professional poker. So what's the backstory there? And then how did you then you eventually kind

00:03:16.140 of came back to cognitive psychology after poker? So yeah, so actually, top secret, I came back to

00:03:22.240 cognitive psychology during poker, which is something that, you know, wasn't my more public

00:03:27.940 facing life. But let me get back to the beginning. So yeah, I went to Columbia undergraduate. Then I went

00:03:33.740 on to University of Pennsylvania to study cognitive science with a National Science Foundation

00:03:39.300 fellowship. And I was there for five years. I mean, I went through the whole thing. I got my master's,

00:03:45.320 and I was actually on my way to becoming a professor, so much so that I already had all

00:03:50.560 of my job talks lined up. And during my last year in graduate school, I've been struggling with some

00:03:56.340 stomach issues. And that kind of came to a head, actually, as I was on my way to my first interview

00:04:01.700 up at NYU. And I got really, they really came to the fore. And I got really sick. And I actually ended

00:04:07.700 up in the hospital for two weeks. So I had to delay going out on the market. And in academics,

00:04:14.560 the job market is seasonal. You don't just, you know, anytime you apply, you really only apply in

00:04:20.580 the spring for the start of the, you know, the academic year in the fall. So I had to wait for a

00:04:26.200 year. So during that time, while I was recuperating, I was sick. And so I couldn't really teach to make

00:04:33.320 money. And, you know, I just needed money because I didn't have my fellowship then because I was taking

00:04:36.940 time off. And I was, had actually gone to Montana with my then husband in order to recuperate. And

00:04:43.380 my brother, Howard Letterer, who was already a professional poker player at that point,

00:04:47.500 suggested to me that for money, I could go play in some poker games that were legal in Montana at the

00:04:52.280 time. So off I went and I thought, okay, well, I'll try this out and I'll see if I can make some

00:04:58.640 money in the meantime while I'm waiting to go back out onto the job market the next year. And,

00:05:02.860 you know, I always joke that the meantime ended up being 20 years. So I started playing,

00:05:07.780 that was in 1992. I declared myself to be a professional, which I guess means like that's

00:05:13.920 what I was writing on my taxes in 1994. And I retired from the game in 2012. So it was a very

00:05:21.040 long meantime. So, and since then, since you've retired, what have you been spending your time on

00:05:26.520 and working on? Well, what I've been spending my time on is actually what I was doing in parallel

00:05:30.660 to the poker playing from 2002 on. So in 2002, I had the very good luck of somebody asking Eric

00:05:39.500 Seidel, who is an amazing poker player. He's actually a big character in my book. He shows

00:05:45.680 up a lot in there, but he's an incredible poker player. He has like $38 million in tournament

00:05:50.740 winnings. And he got asked by a friend of his to come and speak to a group of operators about the

00:05:57.780 way that poker might inform how you think about risk. So that wasn't so crazy that Eric got asked

00:06:04.760 to do that because Eric in another life had actually been an options trader. And so this was

00:06:08.480 something that he knew through that life. And lucky for me, Eric really hates any kind of public speaking

00:06:13.500 at all. So he recommended, he said, why don't, I don't want to do it, but why don't you ask Annie

00:06:19.500 Duke to do it? She actually used to, you know, teach in college and I think she might be better suited 1.00

00:06:24.420 for this. And so I got the call and that was the first talk that I ever gave where I really had to

00:06:29.240 think in a really clear way about these issues of how do you make better decisions? How does

00:06:36.600 uncertainty really muck the system up? How do you figure out how, what future you're supposed to bet

00:06:43.020 on and think about how do you actually communicate that to another person, which is a whole different

00:06:47.840 problem than actually sort of executing these skills at the table. It's actually really interesting

00:06:53.160 to try to figure out like, how am I supposed to communicate these things that I'm kind of doing

00:06:57.120 at the table in a way that another human being could then understand and actually learn from

00:07:03.700 and being able to execute on themselves. So that, that idea of how do you teach it really helps

00:07:09.540 clarify your own thoughts. So that was in 2002. And, you know, I say that there are these moments in

00:07:15.480 my life where I kind of have these aha moments. And I would say one of them was definitely when I sat down

00:07:20.360 at a poker table and started playing where it, it, that was a big aha moment for me of, oh my gosh,

00:07:25.460 this is really the kind of problem that I love. And it seems to be a really interesting and practical

00:07:31.220 application of the things that I was studying in cognitive psychology. And wow, like so much,

00:07:37.960 I mean, I really just felt it deep in my soul that this was something that I wanted to be doing.

00:07:42.700 And I think that when I gave that talk, that was another aha moment of remembering the joy that I felt

00:07:49.500 in teaching. So I wanted more, you know, it was, wow, this it's so cool when you're up and you're

00:07:56.260 giving a talk because it really is a conversation. You're trying to have the right conversation with

00:08:00.440 the audience and you're seeing what the audience is responding to. It clarifies your thought. It

00:08:05.780 changes the way you think about the world. It changes your mind in the most beautiful way.

00:08:12.080 And then you talk to people afterwards and it's just, it's, I just love it. And so anyway,

00:08:16.420 from that, that, that particular hedge fund manager actually started recommending me to

00:08:21.360 other people. And so for, for the next two years, I would get these occasional recommendations coming

00:08:26.060 in to be talking on these topics. And then about two years in, I said, you know what? I really like

00:08:32.320 it when people occasionally call me, I'm going to start intentionally building this business.

00:08:36.460 And I would say that I started intentionally building it right around 2004, probably. And

00:08:40.520 from there actually built a very big kind of side, you know, business that I was doing that

00:08:47.340 obviously wasn't on television. That wasn't really what I was known for. But so by the time 2012

00:08:52.080 rolled around and I left poker, I already had this other part of my life, which I was actually at that

00:08:58.040 point, a bigger part of my, really a bigger part of my life. And that, that's what developed into the

00:09:02.700 book was, you know, all that speaking that I've been doing since 2002.

00:09:05.780 Right. So you basically consult and teach people and businesses how to make better decisions.

00:09:11.980 So, I mean, oftentimes when we think about decision-making, there's often, we often make

00:09:17.400 analogies to games and some people say, Oh, you know, life is a game of chess. And the decisions you

00:09:23.000 make, you make one decision, you see what the next person's decision is, you know, move is and so on

00:09:28.640 and so forth. But you argue that no, life isn't really like chess or the decisions we make in life

00:09:33.760 isn't like playing a game of chess. It's more like poker. Why is poker a better symbol for

00:09:40.080 decisions in life compared to some other game?

00:09:42.840 Yeah. Basically here, here's the, the problem with using chess as a model for the kinds of

00:09:48.860 decisions that we make in life is that chess is a very constrained problem, meaning there just isn't

00:09:54.520 a lot of uncertainty in it. There's a very little bit of luck. And really, if you, I mean, there's no

00:10:00.680 hidden information in the sense that you can see all the pieces sitting right in front of you. So I

00:10:05.500 have access to your whole position. Now there's certain things I don't have access to. Like,

00:10:10.080 I don't know what openings you've recently been studying, for example, but as far as the pieces,

00:10:16.360 as they lay, I can see all of those. And in terms of the luck element, you know, there's nobody rolling

00:10:21.740 the dice. And then if it comes up, you know, nine, I get to take your bishop off the board. So

00:10:29.060 there's just, there's almost no luck in that game. So what that means is that it's a very different

00:10:35.280 problem than most of the kinds of problems that we have to tackle in life. Life is much more like

00:10:42.040 poker where there is lots of hidden information. The cards are face down and the relationship between

00:10:47.120 your decision quality and the way that an outcome might turn out on a single try is actually quite

00:10:52.860 loose. So I'll give you an example that's actually a relatively high skill example in life where you

00:10:59.180 can really see how this looks much more like poker than it does like chess. So have you ever in your

00:11:06.420 life run through a red light? Yes, I have. Have you done it more than once? No, it was like, I can't,

00:11:13.080 maybe I know once for sure I have. I've done it more than once. Right. It was when I was trying to beat

00:11:18.320 the yellow light and I ran the red light. Right. Or, I mean, I imagine that there have been times

00:11:22.600 when you didn't see that it turned red or you've never done like the three in the morning and you're,

00:11:28.180 the light's taking forever and you're looking and you're seeing that nobody else is coming.

00:11:32.040 I'm such a sheep. I have not done that. I'm like, I'm obeying the law. Yeah.

00:11:36.500 Okay. I haven't either. I have friends who have done that.

00:11:39.140 Right. I know people who have done that. Yes.

00:11:40.720 Yes. So, so when you happened to run that red light, did, did a cop pull you over and give you a ticket?

00:11:47.100 No, no. That's interesting. Did you get in an accident? I did not.

00:11:51.860 No, you went through the red light just fine. Right. Yes. Isn't that interesting? So I, so me

00:11:59.140 too, by the way, I've never had anything happen to me when I went through a red light. So here's my

00:12:04.220 question for you. I've only ever had good outcomes running red lights. Do you think that makes running

00:12:09.640 red lights a good decision? Um, well, I'm going to say no. Um, and in fact, despite the fact that

00:12:18.520 I've had some good outcomes, I actually do not try to, I mean, I'm not attempting ever to run a red 0.85

00:12:23.600 light. So I don't even do it at two in the morning. I mean, I was just using that as an example,

00:12:28.340 but if, if I happen to run a red light, it's generally accidental and rare. So, so here,

00:12:33.940 here's the issue is that if, you know, in a game like chess, because there, there isn't this hidden

00:12:41.720 information issue and the luck has such a small influence on, on the outcome of any game, it's

00:12:48.100 kind of like, if you ran a red light, you would get at least a ticket every single time. Because

00:12:54.040 in chess, if I make bad decisions, if I make bad moves now, now, you know, that's going to result

00:13:01.480 in me losing the game, assuming that the choices that I make are worse than yours. Right now in

00:13:07.320 poker, that's not true. In poker, I could make terrible decisions in comparison to you. We could

00:13:11.340 be playing poker and I could make every decision that I make could be worse than yours. And I can

00:13:16.600 still win the hand that, that can't happen in chess. If I make worse decisions than you in chess,

00:13:21.600 I will lose. It's just, that's just true. So what that means is that as we're looking at

00:13:28.320 how are we supposed to model the way that we're supposed to think about decisions, we have to

00:13:33.540 take into account that in, in life, there's lots and lots of hidden information. There's lots of

00:13:37.920 things we can't see. There's lots of information that we don't have. We can't see the other person's

00:13:43.120 position. We can't see our own position very often. And we know that whatever decision we make,

00:13:48.960 there are lots of possible futures that have could occur. Some good, some bad,

00:13:53.240 some with higher probability, some with lower probability, but we can't know how it's going

00:13:57.440 to turn out. And it causes this particular issue, which is that if we know what the outcome is

00:14:03.280 about a decision that's occurring in life, we can't necessarily work backwards to what the decision

00:14:10.180 quality is based on that one outcome. We can, if we have, you know, 10,000 outcomes, but not if we

00:14:14.880 have one. Whereas in chess, that's a relatively reasonable strategy. So in chess, if you say to,

00:14:21.820 you know, if you say to me, Hey, I lost a game, then I know that probably your decision quality

00:14:27.180 in that game was not good. Certainly not in comparison to your opponents, right? I can make

00:14:31.180 that link. But in poker, if you tell me, Hey, I lost a hand, I actually don't know very much about

00:14:36.240 your decision quality. And that's true of most decisions in life. If I say to you, Hey, I got through

00:14:42.360 light safely. That doesn't necessarily mean that I followed all the rules of the road. I could have

00:14:46.820 done that just fine without doing it. Gotcha. So this is an interesting point because you say

00:14:51.560 you're making the case that in life, most of the decisions we make involve luck, but I would say,

00:14:56.800 you know, in America, I think there's this idea that, well, uh, I don't believe in luck or I make

00:15:02.460 my own luck or in, in, in people think they can just kind of bootstrap themselves to success.

00:15:08.320 And then they, you know, they read, well, look at this guy. He started from nothing and ended up

00:15:12.360 the top. Cause it was just hard work and he made his own luck. Are you saying that's like,

00:15:15.980 that's a faulty way to look at the world? I don't think it's a faulty way to look at the

00:15:20.320 world. I think it's a faulty way to understand luck. So let me explain what I mean by that.

00:15:26.120 Sure. You can improve the probability that you will have good outcomes by improving your decision

00:15:31.480 making, but that is not making your own luck. That is increasing the chances that you have a good

00:15:39.120 outcome. So you can't guarantee that things will turn out well. And you, even though you might

00:15:45.760 have made decisions that increase the probability that you have a good outcome, you cannot guarantee

00:15:50.500 it. You cannot make luck go your way. So it's this idea of incrementally increasing the chances that

00:15:59.580 things go well for you and that hopefully those things play out over time. So if I'm somebody who's

00:16:05.500 making decisions where I'm going to have a really good outcome, you know, 55% of the time,

00:16:12.040 and you're making decisions where you're going to have really good outcomes, 62% of the time,

00:16:17.460 I'd rather be you, but you didn't make luck. You made better decisions that then increased the

00:16:22.300 probability that good things were happening. But neither of us have any control beyond that.

00:16:26.860 Once, once we've made the decision and we're hurtling ourselves to some set of futures,

00:16:31.920 each of which have some sort of, you know, some probability associated with them,

00:16:36.840 we have no control beyond that. I can have a coin that's going to flip heads 50% of the time and

00:16:43.480 flip tails 50% of the time. And I can know that, right? And I can know exactly what the probability

00:16:48.720 is. And that doesn't mean that I know whether it's going to flip heads on the very next flip.

00:16:52.360 And that's what life is like. And I think that when people say, I make my own luck,

00:16:56.100 they're acting like somehow you, I know better than you that it's going to land heads. And I

00:17:01.120 don't think that that's true. And I think that having that kind of realistic view of the fact

00:17:07.000 that all we can do is increase the probability. We can't do anything beyond that. We never have

00:17:11.260 any control of luck. I think a lot of really good things come out of that because I think it does

00:17:15.560 drive you to be a better decision maker. And I think the other thing it does is it creates a lot

00:17:20.600 more compassion in the world. Because one of the things that I think comes out of this idea of,

00:17:25.000 well, you make your own luck is that if people have a bad outcome, there's this idea, well,

00:17:30.860 if you had just worked harder, it would have worked out for you. And this much more sort of

00:17:37.400 ownership of your own successes than necessarily maybe is rational for you to take. And I think

00:17:42.580 that both of those things actually really hurt us. So one of the things that they talk about,

00:17:47.300 of course, is like survivor bias. And I think that make your own luck idea really contributes to

00:17:52.680 survivor bias. So survivor bias is that when we're reading case studies of, you know, we're reading

00:17:58.380 the books of people who are telling you there are secrets to getting rich, you're reading the people

00:18:03.020 who have succeeded. Nobody's buying a secrets to getting rich book from somebody who has failed.

00:18:09.140 But that person might have actually had a better strategy than the person who succeeded. I think a

00:18:14.700 good place to sort of see that is to look at outliers. Malcolm Gladwell's book,

00:18:19.980 Outliers, because he really talks about like timing, right? That there's a lot of things that have to

00:18:24.980 do with timing. If you look at all the people who made their fortunes in computers, they were all born

00:18:29.100 around the same time. People who came out of college during the Great Depression, they didn't do so

00:18:33.800 well. But they might have had great strategies and been great decision makers. They just, you know,

00:18:38.220 there were things that were under, that weren't under their control. And I think it's just a more

00:18:42.480 rational way to look at the world. And I think it causes you to focus in much more on decision

00:18:46.820 process and become much less outcome oriented. I like that. I like that a lot. And also it's,

00:18:52.860 you know, it's compassion for yourself too. If things aren't going your way, you might be doing

00:18:56.560 everything you're supposed to be doing and making the right decisions. But there's some factor that

00:19:01.060 it's out of your control. Like you shouldn't feel so down on yourself. Yeah. I mean, I always like to say

00:19:07.280 that we should probably spend less time beating ourselves up, but also less time patting ourselves on the

00:19:15.660 back so hard, you know, and I think that that just creates a much smoother existence. And I think

00:19:20.380 it does create a lot of compassion for yourself. And I think that when you do that, you also create

00:19:24.820 a lot more compassion for other people. And I think that you're happier when you're able to do that,

00:19:30.060 when you're able to see that other people might've had bad outcomes. And it doesn't necessarily mean

00:19:35.080 that they were bad decision makers or that they deserved it. You know, I think that that's also a

00:19:40.900 really tough way to live. So I'm all for compassion all around. Yeah, definitely. So here's the

00:19:46.540 question. So if there's the outcomes of decisions are based on the quality of our decisions or skill,

00:19:52.620 and then there's luck, how do you figure out if your results were due primarily to skill or luck? I mean,

00:20:00.360 it sounds like you wouldn't be able to find that out just looking at one example. It sounds like you

00:20:03.960 need multiple examples so you could eventually suss that out. Yeah. So here's this, I think this is

00:20:11.700 going to be a little bit counterintuitive. So in most things in life, we don't have enough data

00:20:15.780 to be able to get a big enough set of outcomes in order to be able to tell much, right? I mean,

00:20:21.620 it's kind of the problem of like, you're usually getting like, you know, a few flips of the coin,

00:20:26.380 you're not getting 10,000. So how do you then derive what the coin looks like if you don't have very

00:20:32.440 many outcomes? And, you know, it feels like this really big problem. So what I would say is that

00:20:38.380 the secret to trying to figure it out is to actually try to separate outcomes from decisions

00:20:43.820 as much as possible. So the issue is this, is that there is hidden information and we don't know what

00:20:50.240 we don't know. And, you know, we process the information that we have in very particular ways.

00:20:55.720 And then there's luck in it that gets into the mix. And so it's all very opaque looking into

00:21:02.000 the quality of a decision. It's, it's just hard. And what, what really, really makes that hard is

00:21:09.020 when the outcome is already known, then it becomes almost impossible because the weight of the outcome,

00:21:15.460 you know, basically the sort of, let's call it the cognitive size of the outcome overshadows

00:21:22.320 everything else. And we can all, it's like, we can only see the outcome and we're trying to make

00:21:28.600 the decision process fit with that. So what we actually want to do is be analyzing our decisions

00:21:35.760 in absence of outcomes as much as possible. So let me give you an example, hopefully that's going to

00:21:41.040 make this a little bit clearer. Okay. So, so I actually opened the book with this example.

00:21:45.780 So it's 2015 and the Seattle Seahawks are on the one yard line of the New England Patriots and it's

00:21:56.100 the Superbowl and you know, it's the Superbowl because the New England Patriots are there. So

00:22:00.360 obviously it has to be the Superbowl because they're always in there anyway. So there are the

00:22:06.080 Seattle Seahawks are on the one yard line, 26 seconds left. It's second down. They have one time

00:22:11.480 out and they are down by four against the New England Patriots. Now people probably remember

00:22:18.800 what happens next. Pete Carroll calls a pass play. Russell Wilson passes the ball and it gets

00:22:28.820 intercepted by Malcolm Butler in the end zone and the game is over. Of course, everybody was expecting

00:22:35.260 him to hand off the ball to Marshawn Lynch. So now we have an outcome now, right? Which is

00:22:41.440 interception loss of game. What happened the next day was really spectacular. And actually what happened

00:22:47.420 even during the game, you can hear Chris Collingsworth calling this and you know, the ball gets

00:22:52.340 intercepted and he really comes down on Pete Carroll. Like he can't even believe that this was the call.

00:22:58.840 And then the next day, the headlines, you know, they seem to be sort of having an argument about

00:23:04.180 whether it was the worst kick call in Superbowl history or the worst call in football history,

00:23:08.940 period. What was interesting was there wasn't a lot of like, oh, well, maybe the decision was

00:23:14.240 pretty good, but they just got unlucky and had an interception. There was a little bit of it.

00:23:19.140 So there was a writer on slate who's made that argument. Also Benjamin Morris over on 538 made this

00:23:24.540 argument. Subsequently, a couple of years later, Bill Belichick even made the argument that it was

00:23:29.520 actually a pretty good play, but nobody thought that. And even today, really nobody thinks that.

00:23:35.620 And when I get up in front of audiences and I show the clip of this play, even after I explain some of

00:23:40.520 that reasoning, which we can go into if you want to, I don't, I don't know if you want to go into the

00:23:44.080 reasoning, but even after I go into the sum of the reasoning, you know, people still argue with me

00:23:47.880 about it. The main thing that is really important to know about that play call is that the chances of

00:23:53.140 an interception there are only between one and 2%. So it's tiny. So an interception there was a very

00:24:00.040 unlucky result. It was a very, very, very low probability future to have occurred as a result of this

00:24:06.300 pass play. And they got a lot in return for that one or 2% interception rate that they might be paying,

00:24:12.800 but it's really low. Now, once you know how low that interception rate is, one would think that the idea

00:24:20.720 that it's the worst play and call in Superbowl history might go away because you just, you know

00:24:25.820 that there, clearly there was a tremendous amount of luck in the way that that turned out, but it

00:24:30.100 doesn't. And the reason that it doesn't is because you know the outcome. So let me do a thought

00:24:34.920 experiment with you so that we can see how knowing the outcome really mucks up our ability to analyze

00:24:39.600 these things. Let's imagine that there's 26 seconds left and the team is on the one yard line

00:24:46.340 and Pete Carroll calls a pass play and it's caught in the end zone for a touchdown. And the Patriots

00:24:54.700 fail to score in however many few seconds they have left and the Seahawks win the game. What do you

00:25:01.000 think the headlines would have looked like the next day? Gutsy call, greatest call ever. Amazing.

00:25:06.380 Right. And we kind of know that because if you watch the Superbowl this year, what were the headlines

00:25:12.400 about Doug Peterson and the Philly special? Yeah. Yeah. It was all that. Yeah. Right. He was

00:25:17.820 brilliant. So let's do the reverse thought experiment there. Cause remember everybody was

00:25:23.140 expecting them to go for the field goal there. So that now the Philly, it's the end of the second

00:25:27.540 quarter and it's fourth and one last play of the quarter. Everybody's expecting they're going to go

00:25:34.040 for a field goal. They do this crazy Philly special situation where Nick Foles, the quarterback

00:25:38.920 manages to catch a, you know, catch a pass in the end zone. So imagine that that pass had been

00:25:44.460 intercepted and that Philly had gone on to lose the game. What do you think people would have been

00:25:50.600 saying about that play call that they did not go for the field goal? Worst call ever. Should have done

00:25:55.980 it. Yeah. Okay. So when you ask me, how is it that we're supposed to figure out what's due to luck

00:26:01.300 and what's due to skill? And this is again, counterintuitive. The first step is to isolate

00:26:08.580 yourself from the outcome of the decision as much as possible. So because it just, it just ends up

00:26:14.960 distorting everything. It's like a huge gravity well on your decision analysis, right? It just,

00:26:20.360 it's like putting blinders on. You can't see past it. So there's two ways to do that. One is as much

00:26:26.460 as possible. Really analyze the decision in advance of the outcome. So you could imagine,

00:26:32.160 for example, if you're doing strategic planning to really think through that strategic plan

00:26:37.340 in a, in a real way, imagine what the possible outcomes are. All the possible outcomes are

00:26:43.420 assigned probabilities to them, put action plans in place for trying to increase the probabilities of

00:26:48.660 the good outcomes and decrease the probabilities of the bad outcomes and memorialize it. You know,

00:26:54.140 put it on a whiteboard, take a picture, pass it around, pin it to your whatever, like make sure

00:27:00.180 that you have that so that everybody can see it. So that when the past gets intercepted, you can look

00:27:05.400 at that and you say, look, we took that into account. There's the 1%. So you know, it's there in

00:27:10.160 advance. That's one thing that you can do is do as much as possible before the outcome. But sometimes

00:27:15.400 the outcome has already happened. And in that case, go find some people who have been quarantined from the

00:27:21.000 outcome who don't know the outcome and talk to them as if it's a brand new decision and don't tell them

00:27:26.960 what the outcome is. Just talk to them as if you're talking to them about a brand new decision. And

00:27:31.140 that's going to be really the first step in terms of digging down into, you know, what's a good

00:27:35.520 decision, what's not, what has to do with luck, what doesn't, where can we change the decision process,

00:27:40.120 what information could we have been seeking that maybe we didn't know, and start getting more

00:27:45.440 into the skill portion of the game, right? And not getting so overshadowed by the luck portion of

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00:30:15.780 Gotcha. So detach yourself, avoid resulting. I think that's what they call it in poker,

00:30:19.740 where you just look on the results.

00:30:21.060 Yes, right. And the best way to avoid resulting is to not know the result. That's a really good way

00:30:26.460 to avoid resulting. If I don't know the result, it's very hard for me to be a resultor.

00:30:30.100 Sure. So you mentioned an interesting point when you're calculating, when you're trying to figure

00:30:35.320 out whether your decision process is a sound one, a good one. One of the things you suggest is to

00:30:40.680 assign probabilities to different outcomes. From what I understand it, like humans are really bad

00:30:46.340 at probabilities. Like we're actually like, we're not like, we're absolutely terrible at it. So how do

00:30:50.400 you go about assigning probabilities to things you don't know or how they're going to like, you know,

00:30:56.120 basically I'm trying to think of like a life decision. Like, should I go to this college?

00:30:59.020 Right. There's a lot of unknown factors going on. So how do you assign probabilities to that?

00:31:04.840 The step one is stop worrying about whether you've got the right answer.

00:31:09.640 So what I feel like is a lot of people don't want to assign probabilities to things because

00:31:14.300 they're afraid they're going to get it wrong. And I like to think about it from the frame of

00:31:19.500 the only way to get it wrong is to not try. So because here's the thing, let's agree that if you

00:31:27.340 choose a particular college, the probability of you liking that college is not 0% or 100%.

00:31:33.180 Does that seem fair to you for me to make that assertion?

00:31:37.420 Yeah, I think so.

00:31:38.240 Okay. So if it's not 0% or 100%, it's definitely some probability in between.

00:31:44.720 So take your best guess because your best guess is better than the default because there's kind of

00:31:53.820 like only two ways that the default can go, right? The default is either you're acting like you're 100%

00:32:00.960 sure it's going to be great or 0% or it's like, well, I'll like it or I won't. I'm not sure what

00:32:08.820 that is. Maybe you're thinking everything's like a 50-50 shot or something like that. But the fact

00:32:15.240 is that it's none of those things, right? There is some probability that you're going to like it.

00:32:20.280 We know it's not 0% or 100%. So just take a stab. Try to get somewhere in the middle because that's

00:32:26.400 better than nothing at all. So it's more right than not trying to do it at all, even if it's a range,

00:32:33.000 right? Even if you say, this is really hard for me, I really don't know. There's just a lot of

00:32:39.320 factors. So I'm like between 30% and 70% of the time, I think I'm going to like this college.

00:32:46.680 That's still better. You narrowed it down. You're doing better than 0% or 100%. So that's the first

00:32:53.600 thing is don't be afraid to try because what happens is that as you try, there's some really

00:33:01.860 wonderful things that come from taking those stabs at it. Number one is that you're motivated

00:33:08.320 to figure out how to get better at it. That's the first thing. So that you're really thinking

00:33:14.280 about as your life is unfolding, like how is my experience informing the way that I'm thinking

00:33:20.920 about these probabilities so that you can start to narrow those ranges down. You now have a motivation

00:33:25.820 to try to improve. Number two, you become super, super information hungry because in order for me

00:33:33.560 to narrow those probabilities down, obviously the more information that I have, the better off I am.

00:33:40.020 So like if you're thinking about the college decision, you're much more likely to be going

00:33:44.120 through like, what are my values? What are the things that I think I'm going to like? Let me try to

00:33:48.940 make some sort of ordered list from most important to less important of the things that I think are really

00:33:54.080 important for me to have in a college. And then let me really research the college instead of just

00:33:59.660 going and visiting and it happens to be a sunny day, right? So I liked it. Let me actually think

00:34:07.000 about where does the college fit with what my values are. So, and you're going to be more likely to talk

00:34:11.900 to other people who have experienced that college. You might actually seek out people who didn't like

00:34:16.520 the college to try to talk to them, which is something that you normally wouldn't do because you're really

00:34:21.220 trying to get a sense now of how do I come up with the best guess, the best stab at how much I'm going

00:34:27.300 to like this. So you become information hungry. The third thing that happens that I think is really

00:34:32.980 good is that when you start to express yourself this way, you invite other people to tell you what

00:34:40.440 they know, what their opinions are about it, why they think that maybe your perspective

00:34:47.620 needs to be calibrated information that they might have that they otherwise wouldn't share you

00:34:53.820 with you. So think about it this way. If you're like, I want to go to this college, I'm a hundred

00:34:57.840 percent sure. This is definitely where I want to go. And you know, somebody who really didn't like

00:35:02.000 that college. You're probably not going to tell me that because I already told you, I made my decision.

00:35:06.620 I already told you I'm a hundred percent sure. Why would you want to make me sad by telling the

00:35:10.460 story about your friend who really hated it and dropped out after six months? So you're now not

00:35:16.260 sharing relevant information that would help me with my decision. But when I say to you, I'm thinking

00:35:22.160 about this college and I'm like, you know, I don't know, maybe I'm 60% sure that I'm going to like it.

00:35:28.120 Now you're going to tell me all the people who liked it and why they liked it and all the people who

00:35:32.500 didn't, because I've invited you into this process in a way where the way that I've expressed myself

00:35:38.200 ensures that, you know, that I'm not going to be defensive about the information that you're

00:35:43.280 giving me, that I'm not going to think that you're attacking my beliefs or attacking my viewpoint.

00:35:48.700 I am, I am signaling to you that I am open-minded. And if we know that a lot of the problem with

00:35:55.000 decision-making that makes it different than chess and more like poker is that there's all these

00:36:01.500 face-down cards. There's all this information that we don't have. There's all this stuff that I don't

00:36:06.440 know that you don't know because you've had different experiences than I do. I have, you have

00:36:11.220 different hypotheses than I have. You think about the world in a different way than I do. So you have

00:36:16.800 all this stuff that might be really valuable to me. I need to start to get those cards to be able,

00:36:22.680 you know, to narrow down what's in those cards. And that means that I have to be getting as much

00:36:26.520 information as I can. I have to reveal the unknown to myself as much as I can. And I can do that

00:36:31.380 in the way that I express these kinds of probabilistic guesses to you. And that in turn

00:36:36.600 is going to help me refine those guesses. And it's going to invite you in the process to work

00:36:40.980 through it with me so that I now have collaborators and helpers in the process.

00:36:45.740 That's awesome. So, you know, admitting your uncertainty from the, from the get-go

00:36:48.900 allows you to get more information, which allows you to refine your uncertainty and become more

00:36:54.100 certain, you know, increase the probability. So that's kind of, kind of, kind of counterintuitive.

00:36:57.780 Right. I just want to say, like, I think that this is a big problem for leadership,

00:37:01.780 like leaders of teams. I think that a lot of people think, well, in order to really be believable

00:37:07.180 to my team, in order for them to believe that I have the right to be leading them,

00:37:12.260 that I need to be expressing things with certainty. And when you do that, a few things happen. One is that

00:37:18.520 you, you end up actually creating a version of resulting, which is that once the leader has expressed

00:37:23.380 their belief, people will reason toward that in the same way that they reason toward making an

00:37:28.260 outcome make sense. So you've, you've created another kind of version of resulting, which is

00:37:33.100 people will start to reason toward what the leader has, has stated as the absolute truth. Number one,

00:37:38.620 number two, when they state things with certainty, people in the room are much, much less likely to

00:37:45.260 share information that might be contrary to whatever the, the opinion that's been expressed is.

00:37:52.480 And there's two reasons why they might not do that. One is that they might feel like they're wrong.

00:37:57.380 So if they're not a hundred percent certain of their own beliefs, if they have any uncertainty

00:38:01.760 themselves, if they think maybe we should be going a different way, but I'm like only 40% on that,

00:38:06.900 they're not going to speak up for fear that people are going to, you know, that's going to be,

00:38:09.840 you're wrong or you're disagreeable. Like, why are you disagreeing? You're wrong. Or they're,

00:38:14.660 they're afraid of telling the leader that they're wrong. They're afraid of saying, no, I don't agree with you,

00:38:19.640 that they're going to get in trouble for that. And so they tend to keep their mouth shut.

00:38:23.520 But if a leader actually expresses things with some sort of modulation on the belief,

00:38:29.180 they're much more likely to get people to speak up because then the person doesn't feel like

00:38:33.140 they're not being a team player. You know, when the leader themselves said, I really, I really

00:38:37.120 believe that this is, you know, the best possible way to go. You know, when I think about all of the

00:38:41.900 things that could happen, I think this has a 70% chance of succeeding, you know, sort of compared to

00:38:46.580 all the other ways that things could go just by saying that now, if you have some belief that

00:38:54.480 you're 40% on, you no longer feel bad about, you know, maybe disagreeing, you know, or going against

00:39:00.880 what the tide is because I haven't expressed the tide is certain. No. Yeah. I've definitely been in

00:39:05.560 meetings where a leader will say, here's what I think. And then say, what does you all think? And

00:39:11.160 no one says anything because of course you don't want to disagree with that guy.

00:39:14.220 Yeah. So would it be great if the leader started with, Hey, here's the problem. What do you guys

00:39:19.220 think? Right. And they, they kept their mouth shut now. They, you know, it's sort of that same thing

00:39:25.140 of how do you stop from, you know, how do you actually get good decision process? Well, you know,

00:39:29.380 quarantine yourself from the outcomes as a leader. How do you get the best opinions in the room to

00:39:34.260 express themselves? Quarantine the room from your beliefs. You say what you believe last.

00:39:40.820 No, that's a fantastic, like brass tacks to people can start doing, implementing today.

00:39:45.860 One of the most profound things I got from this book that really hit me was, you know,

00:39:50.440 particularly in this day and age of like just extreme polarization that we have, they use one,

00:39:55.840 one way we can probably moderate some of that is treating our opinions like bets. How can that help

00:40:02.380 moderate our opinions? Well, so there's lots of opinions that people might have. And particularly in

00:40:09.800 this day and age, and particularly when you can type it out in, I guess, 280 characters now in

00:40:14.920 about three seconds without really thinking about it, you know, people seem very free to express

00:40:19.800 their opinions with absolute certainty. So they just say, I know this is true. So let's think about

00:40:25.360 what the framework of thinking about decisions as bets does. So what is a bet? A bet is a decision

00:40:32.060 that's informed by your beliefs about the way that you think the future might turn out. So if I'm in a

00:40:40.180 restaurant and I'm trying to decide between, you know, do I want to order the chicken or the fish?

00:40:45.040 I have beliefs about what things I like in my past experiences and, you know, what I know about the

00:40:50.800 restaurant and how they might, what their specialties might be and such. And so my beliefs inform

00:40:56.540 which future I think is going to be better for me, the future where I'm eating chicken or the future

00:41:01.340 where I'm eating fish. And when I make a decision, I'm betting on, you know, let's say I decide to

00:41:06.000 order the chicken. I'm betting that Annie eating chicken will be happier than Annie eating fish.

00:41:11.060 So that's, that's, that's what a bet is. It's really, and, and that's what all decisions are,

00:41:15.720 right? So I've just put decisions into the frameworks of bets. So when we're making decisions,

00:41:20.420 we are actually betting. We just don't think about it explicitly. So what would happen if we started to

00:41:25.880 think about that explicitly? Well, let's think about what happens when you express an opinion

00:41:29.560 and someone actually challenges you to a bet. So, you know, for example, you know, let's say it's a

00:41:35.900 couple of weeks ago and the stock market took a dive, you know, an 1100 point dive and you announce

00:41:44.660 over the weekend, well, I think on Monday, the stock market's going to be at 400 points. So now I've just

00:41:51.400 expressed that with certainty, right? What happens when someone says to me, well, do you want to bet on

00:41:55.100 that? I mean, what would happen to you if I said to you, do you want to bet on that in that spot?

00:41:59.360 I'd be like, I do some him and he and hawing. Right. You would back off. Yeah. So why would

00:42:05.760 you, why would you back off? I mean, you just, you know, let's say that I did that. And I said,

00:42:10.440 I think it's going to go up 400 points. I mean, I just made a declaration, right? I mean,

00:42:14.020 I just expressed something with total certainty. And if you say, want to bet to me, all of a sudden,

00:42:18.320 I'm like, well, actually, I mean, I didn't really mean like, I'm sure that it's going to go up 400

00:42:24.980 points. I mean, I could do a lot of, you know, now all of a sudden I'm, you know, completely

00:42:29.820 backtracking and why am I backtracking? Because what your question has done to me by saying want

00:42:35.660 to bet is it's reminded me that there's risk in every decision that we make, that when, when I make

00:42:43.260 the decision to order the chicken versus the fish, there's risk in that. Because when I order the

00:42:47.720 chicken, I'm forgoing all the other options that I have. And I'm investing in this case, some money,

00:42:54.180 time, happiness, health, enjoyment, all sorts of limited resources in that decision on, on the

00:43:01.900 future that I've now directed myself to. And so, so, so it's risky. So when I, when you say want to bet

00:43:09.480 to me, you've reminded me of that. And now what happens is I go through this inventory where I

00:43:14.100 think, well, why do I really think that? Like, what is my overall knowledge of the way that the

00:43:19.000 stock market goes? Like, how much do I really know about this, that I've just declared this?

00:43:24.340 Maybe I should find some more information. Why might I be wrong? That's a really important question

00:43:28.920 that makes you ask. Why might I be wrong? Here's another one. What does Brett know that I don't know?

00:43:34.600 Why is he challenging me to this bet? So now it forces me to think about your perspective and think

00:43:38.560 about what you might know that I don't know why I have to think about why would you be arguing against

00:43:44.360 me? Cause that's really what you're declaring. And all of those things actually caused me to do a lot

00:43:48.840 of vetting of this belief or prediction that I've just declared with such certainty. So it backs me off

00:43:56.160 and basically moves me into a place where I acknowledge the uncertainty in my beliefs. I acknowledge

00:44:03.920 the inherent uncertainty in any prediction that I make about the future. And that's a good place to

00:44:10.820 be because we can't be certain. You know, our beliefs are rarely certain. Our predictions about

00:44:17.440 the future can't be certain because luck intervenes. And so it actually puts us in a place where we are

00:44:22.420 more accurately representing the beliefs that we have. We're more accurately representing the predictions

00:44:29.100 that we might have. Now think about how wonderful that would be for Twitter. You know, if before you

00:44:35.520 posted anything on Twitter, you, you know, someone said to you, well, do you want to bet on that

00:44:39.240 opinion? Right. I think that people would start saying, well, you know, I was thinking about this

00:44:43.940 and you know, I like sort of 60% believe this. Right. No. And I was reading that. I was like,

00:44:49.700 that'd be cool. Someone made some sort of like Twitter plugin where you had to, for every opinion,

00:44:54.120 you spout it off. You had to like put, you know, a few bucks on the line. I don't know. Crazy idea

00:44:59.300 that I got. I think that'd be great. So listen, I think you should do that. Okay. Create an app.

00:45:03.720 I will. No, sir. Which is like, literally, it just stops and says like, do you want,

00:45:08.160 would you be willing to bet on this belief? You know? Yeah. So, and ask how much. So,

00:45:13.240 so like here, here's a really good, I think here's a really good example where I think the public would

00:45:17.320 have been a lot better off if people were thinking through this frame. So in November of 2016,

00:45:24.120 2016, you might recall that we had a presidential election. And I thought that there was this really

00:45:28.060 interesting divide between the people who were looking at the polls so that the people were

00:45:33.720 actually doing these polls and sort of figuring out from that, what, you know, what different

00:45:38.680 futures might occur and the pundits. So, you know, when you're watching news programs on TV and the

00:45:45.020 pundits are speaking, like their job is to deliver you the answer with certainty, right? Like they're

00:45:49.400 supposed to express their certain opinion and they're certainly not supposed to waffle. I think

00:45:54.000 you know, sadly a pundit who expressed things, you know, as like, well, you know, I'm kind of 60%

00:45:59.500 that, you know, I mean, like when, if you said like, what's the solution to, to school shootings,

00:46:06.060 you know, wouldn't it be great if instead of a declaration about what it was, they were like,

00:46:09.760 well, I, I think this strategy might be 20% and this strategy might help things, you know,

00:46:15.000 wouldn't that be wonderful, but no pundit is ever going to do that.

00:46:17.480 Okay. So now it's the election, November, 2016. And Nate Silver is looking at the numbers in the

00:46:27.840 week before the election. And it seems to be bouncing between about 70% Clinton, 30% Trump

00:46:34.220 and 60% Clinton, 40% Trump. That's what his, his analysis is, right? Cause he's looking across all

00:46:42.260 the polls and he's, he's, you know, sort of running his analysis. He has a model. And so that's what

00:46:47.240 he's coming out with. And that translates when you're watching on TV to the pundits saying Hillary

00:46:53.140 Clinton's going to win the election. So Nate Silver was acting much more like someone had asked him,

00:46:59.860 do you want to bet on this? Because notice his opinion is quite modulated. Whereas the pundits are

00:47:05.940 not thinking about that. They're just trying to tell you who's going to win. And they've declared

00:47:09.580 that it's Clinton. And of course the people who, you know, you're really hearing are the pundits.

00:47:13.600 So what happens the next day when Trump wins the election, everybody's in shock. And, and what are

00:47:20.440 they saying? The pollsters are wrong. They got it wrong. Boy, these people, they don't know what

00:47:24.600 they're doing with their polls. And even a year later, you're still hearing that when people talk

00:47:28.680 about, oh, such and such as polling at such and such a place, you know, this election is polling

00:47:34.320 this way. People will still refer back to November and they'll say, well, you know, I don't believe in

00:47:39.180 polls. Polls are just wrong. Well, no, it's not that the polls were wrong. It's that the pundits

00:47:43.840 were expressing what the data from the polls were telling them with certainty. They weren't expressing

00:47:48.860 it. Like someone was saying to them, do you want to bet on it? Because here's the deal. I bet if

00:47:52.980 somebody had said to one of those, those pundits who declared, well, Hillary Clinton's going to win

00:47:57.900 this election. Hey, do you want to bet on it? I bet they would back off. Because if you looked at

00:48:03.120 Nate Silver's data, it would be the exact same question as saying here, I have a gun and it

00:48:09.160 has 10 chambers in it and I have filled three to four of them with bullets. So now would

00:48:19.180 you like to hold that to your head and pull the trigger? And I'm guessing that they would 0.97

00:48:23.260 say, well, actually, let me rephrase. I don't think Hillary Clinton's going to win. I think

00:48:27.860 like most, you know, she's, she's, she's favored. Right, right. She's going to win a lot of the 1.00

00:48:33.200 time, but not all the time, which would have been the right reaction. So had that been communicated in

00:48:40.640 that probabilistic way, wrapping the uncertainty into it in an effective way to the public,

00:48:46.320 the public's reaction the next day would have been much better, you know, because they would

00:48:50.480 have said like, oh, well, you know, he was going to win like 40% of the time. I guess that's not that

00:48:54.480 surprising. And they would have stopped dismissing the expertise of the pollsters because pollsters

00:49:00.380 really do have a lot of expertise. They're statistically quite adept. They wouldn't have

00:49:04.560 been dismissing this group of experts is really not knowing what they're doing. And the other

00:49:09.420 thing I think that's interesting is that if that had been communicated to the public, if any election

00:49:15.160 were to get communicated to the public in that way, I think the public would be able to make much

00:49:19.100 better choices about what their actions should be. So let's take, for example, a situation where

00:49:24.360 people are just telling you that your preferred candidate is going to win. Then maybe you're not

00:49:29.500 really working hard to make sure that candidate wins or that your preferred candidate is definitely

00:49:33.940 going to lose. Again, maybe you're not working that hard to make sure that your preferred candidate

00:49:38.320 doesn't lose. But if you express it as like 60-40, you know, now all of a sudden that's going to change

00:49:45.860 the kinds of decisions that you make around how hard do you want to work on either side of the

00:49:50.880 equation. You're going to have a much better sense of what the actual odds are. You know, is it really

00:49:55.240 important for me to get out and canvas for my, you know, candidate? Do I think it's really going to

00:49:59.260 make a difference? And it's going to change your decision structure in terms of what you do in

00:50:04.120 front of the election as well, if you think about those in a probabilistic way. So, I mean, I think

00:50:08.620 that's just a really good example where you can see how not thinking about things, you know, as a

00:50:14.580 construct of want to bet really mess things up. I mean, I'm sure you've heard this even today where,

00:50:19.500 you know, you've heard people saying, oh, the polls were wrong.

00:50:22.080 No, I love that. And I've been doing that ever since I read that little insight about thinking of your

00:50:26.800 opinions as decisions and your decisions as bets, like giving like probabilities to my opinions,

00:50:31.940 like how sure am I, how sure am I about this opinion that I have? And yeah, it causes you to

00:50:36.780 like realize, okay, I'm not actually, I'm not as sure as I think. And it forces you, as you said,

00:50:41.420 to work a little bit harder so you get more information so you can refine that opinion even

00:50:45.040 more. It makes you open Google up, right? Right. Yeah. Or talk to you, you know, it makes having

00:50:50.180 a conversation about polarizing topics easier. You can tell people like, you know, you know, I'm,

00:50:56.140 I'm at 60% on this. Like I feel this. And like, it opens up people. They're not going to like

00:51:00.720 land blast you and just, they're going to modulate their opinion because they're going to, well,

00:51:05.420 this guy isn't completely decided. We can have a conversation.

00:51:08.700 And also I imagine that it doesn't feel to them like you're attacking their identity.

00:51:14.680 Right. You're not saying you're wrong.

00:51:17.040 Right. Exactly. Yeah. You're not saying you're wrong, which I think is like,

00:51:21.520 I think that that's really the key. You're, you're basically signaling, signaling to them,

00:51:25.480 like, look, my belief is under construction, right? It's in progress. Can you help me with the

00:51:30.540 progress? I would like to, you know, move my belief forward. I would like to be able to calibrate it.

00:51:36.080 I'd like to be able to kind of get it right because it's in progress because I don't really

00:51:39.580 know. And the fact is that, you know, when we think about decisions, all of our decisions are

00:51:44.240 informed by the beliefs that we have. And so the better the beliefs we have in the sense of the

00:51:51.300 more accurate our beliefs are as a representation of the objective truth, the better our bets are going

00:51:57.480 to be, the better our decisions are going to be. I think I say in the book, the person who wins in a

00:52:01.340 bet is not the one who just knows their belief with certainty and processes of the world to make

00:52:07.540 sure that whatever their prior beliefs are, are right. Meaning I just want to be right as opposed

00:52:13.560 to true, which are two different things. So there's a difference between right and accurate.

00:52:18.480 Right is like, I believe this thing and everything that I do is just to prove that, that, that thing

00:52:22.980 that I believe. Right. But that person's going to do very poorly in a betting situation because

00:52:28.220 they're not viewing their beliefs as under construction. So their beliefs are never going

00:52:31.760 to progress. Their beliefs are never going to be calibrated to, you know, better calibrated to what

00:52:37.020 the objective truth is. But the, the person who, you know, views their beliefs as in progress and has

00:52:42.480 the goal of saying, I want to process the world in a way that makes my beliefs more accurate. That

00:52:47.880 person actually is going to do really well. So in order to do that, doing what you've started doing,

00:52:52.160 which is, you know, well, you know, this is what I think is right, but I'm like 60% on it.

00:52:56.200 So that's the best step to making sure that you start to reason toward accuracy as opposed to

00:53:01.940 toward rightness. I love that. Well, Annie, this has been a great conversation and there's so much

00:53:05.820 more we could dig into. Where can people go to learn more about thinking in bets?

00:53:09.520 Sure. Thanks for asking. So for, obviously you can go buy my book at your local bookstore or,

00:53:16.620 you know, on Amazon or burnsandnoble.com or indie books or wherever you can go to annieduke.com,

00:53:23.360 which is my website. And there you'll find a few things. First of all, if you happen to want to

00:53:27.480 hire me, you can hire me there. You can contact me there as well. But I also have a newsletter that

00:53:32.140 I send out every Friday, which actually takes things that are happening out in the world. You

00:53:37.580 know, a lot of current events, a lot of things that are, you know, in the news during that week

00:53:41.620 and looks at them through the lens of thinking in bets. So it's, it's a way for you to start seeing

00:53:47.520 how you might apply the concepts of the book to things that are happening in the world. And if

00:53:52.780 you go to annieduke.com, you can find archives of the newsletter to see if it's something that you

00:53:56.840 like. And if you like it, you can subscribe there and it will hit your inboxes every Friday. And you

00:54:02.560 can also find me on a variety of social media. I'm pretty active on Twitter. So you can go to

00:54:07.440 at Annie Duke is my Twitter handle. And you know, I post stuff that I find interesting there. So

00:54:13.040 you can find me in a bunch of places. Fantastic. Well, Annie Duke, thank you so much for your time.

00:54:17.120 It's been a pleasure. Well, thank you. My guest today was Annie Duke. Her book is thinking in

00:54:20.920 bets. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. Also check out our show notes at

00:54:24.680 aom.is slash thinking in bets, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into

00:54:28.640 this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of

00:54:43.020 manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website

00:54:46.760 at artofmanliness.com. Enjoy the show. I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us

00:54:50.180 a review on iTunes or Stitcher helps that a lot. And if you've already done that, thank you so much.

00:54:53.620 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something

00:54:57.000 out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay

00:55:00.840 telling you to stay manly.

00:55:13.020 Thank you.

The Art of Manliness - March 13, 2018

#387： Think Like a Poker Player to Make Better Decisions

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