I keep wondering how much business advice is really:
“This worked for me, therefore this is how it works.”
One successful outcome can teach you something.
It can also make you dangerously confident about what caused it.
There’s an interesting difference between:
“I changed my mind.”
and
“I was wrong.”
We seem much more comfortable with the first one.
Maybe that’s why people defend old beliefs long after the evidence changes.
A lot of advice is technically right and practically useless.
“Work hard.”
“Be patient.”
“Know when to quit.”
“Take risks.”
“Don’t be reckless.”
The hard part was never knowing the advice.
It’s knowing which advice applies right now.
If you could see a complete record of every major decision you’ve ever made of what you knew, what you feared, the options you considered, what you chose and what happened
would you become a better decision-maker?
Or would you just discover you’ve been making the same 4 mistakes in different clothes your entire life?