"Don't Trust Your Gut" - Book Notes

Categories: Share 2024-10-13

I recently finished reading “Don’t Trust Your Gut: Use Data to Get the Life You Want.” It’s a relatively simple and easy read—you can 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 single, they will also be very happy after establishing a close relationship.
2. In the dating market, the most sought-after partners don’t necessarily lead to emotional happiness. Predicting emotional happiness is very difficult.
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 significantly. Height plays an important role for men attracting women. Additionally, racial discrimination is very evident in the dating process.
5. Income affects a person’s performance in the dating market and has the greatest impact on men.
6. An interesting profession is more attractive to women than a boring one that pays well.
7. People who are dating should focus more on those who aren’t highly competitive and 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 interacts with, as this is the key factor affecting your child’s future development.
2. There are huge differences in scholarship rates for different sports. You can choose a program with fewer applicants so it’s less competitive.
3. Some athletic abilities are highly related to genes, such as in 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 alone are very rare. The rich generally own their own businesses.
2. The path to wealth varies greatly by industry. The rich generally own profitable businesses.
3. It’s important to maintain business profits and avoid price competition. Based on the zero-profit theorem, price competition will continue until profit reaches zero. Some industries where it’s almost impossible to get rich include: 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. Areas truly suitable for entrepreneurship are generally those where large enterprises allow many regional monopoly enterprises to exist. The 6 major industries for building wealth are: real estate, investment, car dealerships, independent creation, market research, and other commodity distribution.
5. To build wealth, use the insights from data to understand three essential questions about 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 startup founder creating a profitable business is about three times that of a 30-year-old startup founder.
2. Outsiders don’t necessarily have an advantage in starting a business. In the business world, deep domain knowledge is not a curse and won’t hinder entrepreneurs from innovating. On the contrary, 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 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 one of the highest-paid employees 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, then start your own business in middle age.

Luck

1. Sam Altman: Entrepreneurial success = idea × product × execution × team × luck, where luck is a random number from 0 to 10,000.
2. Collins and Hansen: Successful companies aren’t luckier than other companies—they’re just better at using the luck they get, using the luck that any company can encounter.
3. In areas where it’s difficult to evaluate a person’s performance, two prominent effects exist. The Mona Lisa effect: unpredictable events have a great impact on success (it hung in the same way for 114 years before being exhibited, no different from others, until 1911 when it was discovered stolen by a foolish thief, then reported everywhere to attract great attention). The Da Vinci effect: an artist’s success brings 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. This refers to the example of painters who display their works in galleries worldwide and don’t 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’s 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, greatly impact 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 was good or bad, we don’t base it on the process, but on the feeling at the peak (how good it was at its best, how bad at its worst) 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 our thinking limits our pursuit of happiness is that we’re 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’re with people they choose, such as romantic partners and friends. Additionally, 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’s recommended to watch more games where you’re not a die-hard fan.
9. If you want to be happy, go into nature and look for beautiful scenery. 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, caring for children/playing with children, caring for 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.