Don't Trust Your Gut - Book Notes

Categories: Share 2024-10-13

I recently finished reading the little book “Don’t Trust Your Gut: Use Data to Get the Life You Want.” It’s relatively simple and easy to read, and you can basically finish it in an afternoon. It covers topics you might encounter in life, such as love and marriage, parenting, wealth, entrepreneurship, luck, appearance, happiness, and pain. I’ve recorded some of the interesting points here.

Love and Marriage

1. If a person is very happy when they are single, they will also be very happy after they establish a close relationship.
2. In the dating market, the most sought-after partners do not necessarily lead to emotional happiness. The difficulty of predicting emotional happiness is very high.
3. The most important characteristics to consider when looking for a partner are their personality, life satisfaction, secure attachment, conscientiousness, and growth mindset.
4. Appearance affects a person’s attractiveness, and the effect is very significant. Height plays an important role in men attracting women. In addition, racial discrimination is very obvious in the dating process.
5. Income affects a person’s performance in the dating market, and has the greatest impact on men.
6. A cool profession is more attractive to women than a boring one that pays well.
7. It is recommended that people who are dating focus more on those who are not highly competitive and on those who have strong psychological qualities.

Parenting

1. Parents have a surprisingly small impact on their children’s overall development (provided they do no harm and raise them normally). In parenting, you may need to pay more attention to the people your child comes into contact with, as this is the key factor affecting your child’s future development.
2. There are huge differences in the proportion of applicants for different sports who receive scholarships from universities. You can choose a program with fewer applicants so it’s not so competitive.
3. Some athletic abilities are highly related to genes, such as basketball, but the importance of genes in baseball and football is far less than half that in basketball. Equestrian and diving are very little affected by genes.

Wealth

1. Cases of achieving financial freedom based on salary are very rare. The rich generally own their own businesses.
2. The situation of getting rich varies greatly from industry to industry. The rich generally own profitable businesses.
3. It is important to maintain business profits and avoid price competition. Based on the zero-profit theorem, price competition will continue until the profit is 0. Some industries that are almost impossible to get rich in are: construction equipment contractors, residential construction, auto repair and maintenance, housing sales and leasing services, construction engineering and related services, interior design contractors, personal care services, and gas stations.
4. The areas that are truly suitable for entrepreneurship are generally areas where large enterprises allow many regional monopoly enterprises to exist. The 6 major industries for getting rich are: real estate, investment, car dealerships, independent creation, market research, and other commodity distribution.
5. To get rich, you can use the content reflected in the data to understand the three must-ask questions of your career. 1. Do I have my own business? 2. Can my business avoid ruthless price competition? 3. Can the industry my business is in avoid being monopolized by global giants?

Entrepreneurship

1. Entrepreneurship is not an advantage for young people. The average age of American business founders is 41.9 years. The probability of a 60-year-old start-up founder creating a profitable business is about three times that of a 30-year-old start-up founder.
2. It is not that outsiders have an advantage in starting a business. In the business world, a deep reserve of domain knowledge is not a curse and will not hinder entrepreneurs from innovating. On the contrary, in the business world, being an excellent insider is a greater advantage for starting a business.
3. When founders’ pre-entrepreneurship income enters the top 0.1% of their industry, their entrepreneurial success rate is the highest.
4. Be patient on the road to success. Spend years learning the various knowledge and details of an industry, prove your value by becoming the highest-paid employee in the industry, and then start a business to finally obtain real wealth. You can spend years consolidating your professional knowledge, building a network, and achieving success in an industry, and then start your own business in middle age.

Luck

1. Sam Altman: Entrepreneurial success = idea x product x execution x team x luck, and luck is a random number from 0 to 10,000.
2. Collins and Hansen: Successful companies are not luckier than other companies, they are just better at using the luck they get, using the luck that any company can encounter.
3. In areas where it is difficult to evaluate a person’s performance, there are two prominent effects. The Mona Lisa effect: unpredictable events have a great impact on success (it hung in the same way for 114 years before it was exhibited, no different from others, until 1911, when it was discovered that it was stolen by a very stupid thief, and then reported everywhere to attract great attention); The Da Vinci effect: an artist’s success will bring him more success, and people are willing to spend more money on the works of established artists.
4. The Springsteen Law: Travel around and find your luck. It talks about the example of painters who display their works in galleries all over the world and do not miss any opportunity.
5. The Picasso Law: Prolific artists have more opportunities to reap good luck. This law can also be applied in dating and job hunting, by trying many times.

Happiness

1. There is a strong correlation between personal appearance and others’ impressions. Subtle differences in lighting and smiles, as well as larger changes in appearance such as beards, hairstyles, and mirrors, have a great impact on people’s attractiveness. You can use AI to generate multiple styles of yourself, conduct rapid market research and statistical analysis to evaluate your appearance.
2. The peak-end rule: When judging whether a past experience is good or bad, we are not based on the process, but on the feeling at the peak (how good it was when it was good, how bad it was when it was bad) and the feeling at the end (whether good or bad).
3. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to avoid subconsciously refusing to do things that seem to require a lot of energy.
4. Everything is fine, but no one is happy. The impact of money on happiness is very small. A key way that our thinking limits our pursuit of happiness is that we are unable to focus on the present; people are often trapped in depression and unable to extricate themselves.
5. Ways to relieve work pain: listen to music, work from home, and work with friends.
6. People are happiest when they are with people they choose, such as lovers and friends. In addition, being alone is always happier than interacting with weak ties.
7. Social media may make us unhappy. Interacting on social media is one of the least happiness-producing leisure activities.
8. The pain that defeat brings to fans far exceeds the happiness that victory brings. It is recommended to watch more games where you are not a die-hard fan.
9. If you want to be happy, you can go into nature and look for beautiful scenery around you. Bright sunshine and perfect weather can indeed change our mood, but don’t exaggerate the importance of weather. Weather itself cannot make you happy. You still need to do things that make you happy with people who make you happy.
10. Happiness ranking activity list: sex, drama/dance/concert, exhibition/museum/library, sports/exercise, gardening, singing/performing, chatting/socializing, bird watching/nature observation, walking/hiking, hunting/fishing, drinking, hobbies/arts/crafts, meditation/religious activities, competitions/sporting events, taking care of children/playing with children, taking care of pets/playing with pets, listening to music, playing games, shopping/running errands, gambling, watching TV, playing computer games, eating/snacking, cooking/preparing ingredients, drinking tea/coffee, reading, listening to speeches/podcasts.
11. Least happy activity list: sick in bed, working/studying, caring for and helping adults, waiting/queuing, administration/finance/management, meetings/classes, travel/commuting, housework.