Search This Blog

Monday 30 July 2018

Thinking in Bets - Questions to examine the accuracy of our beliefs

Extract 3

1. Why might my belief not be true?

2. What other evidence might be out there bearing on my belief?

3. Are there similar areas I can look toward to gauge whether similar beliefs to mine are true?

4. What sources of information could I have missed or minimized on the way to reaching my belief?

5. What are the reasons someone else could have a different belief, what’s their support, and why might they be right instead of me?

6. What other perspectives are there as to why things turned out the way they did?


A good strategy for figuring out which way to bet would be to imagine if the outcome has happened to us. If a competitor closes a big sale, we know about our tendency to discount their skill. But if we imagine that we had been the one who closed the sale, we are more likely to find the things to give them credit for, that they did well and that we can learn from. Likewise, when we close the big sale, let’s spare a little of the self-congratulations and, instead, examine that great result the way we’d examine it if it happened to someone else.

Treating outcomes as bets constantly reminds us that outcomes are rarely attributable to a single cause and there is almost always uncertainty in figuring out the various causes. Identifying a negative outcome doesn’t have the same personal sting if you turn it into a positive by finding things to learn from it. You don’t have to be on the defensive side of every negative outcome because you can recognize, in addition to things you can improve, things you did well and things outside your control. You realise that not knowing is okay.

No comments:

Post a Comment