Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

by Annie Duke

part of the skill in life comes from learning to be a better belief calibrator, using experience and information to more objectively update our beliefs to more accurately represent the world. The more accurate our beliefs, the better the foundation of the bets we make. There is also skill in identifying when our thinking patterns might lead us astray, no matter what our beliefs are, and in developing strategies to work with (and sometimes around) those thinking patterns. There are effective strategies to be more open-minded, more objective, more accurate in our beliefs, more rational in our decisions and actions, and more compassionate toward ourselves in the process. We have to start, however, with some bad news. As Mr. Carlson learned in WKRP in Cincinnati, our beliefs can be way, way off.