Rolf Dobelli Quotes Page 2

“The more choice you have, the more unsure and therefore dissatisfied you are afterward.”

“The more people who follow a certain idea, the better (truer) we deem the idea to be.”

“There are two kinds of forecasters: those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know,”

“Trust your internal observations too much and too long, and you might be in for a very rude awakening.

Second, we believe that our introspections are more reliable than those of others, which creates an illusion of superiority.

Remedy: Be all the more critical with yourself. Regard your internal observations with the same skepticism as claims from some random person. Become your own toughest critic.”

“We are drunk on our own ideas. To sober up, take a step back every now and then and examine their quality in hindsight.

Which of your ideas from the past ten years were truly outstanding? Exactly.”

“We fail to notice how our money disappears. It constantly loses its value, but we do not notice because inflation happens over time. If it were imposed on us in the form of a brutal tax and basically that’s what it is, we would be outraged.”

“We must learn to close doors. A business strategy is primarily a statement on what not to engage in. Adopt a life strategy similar to a corporate strategy: Write down what not to pursue in your life.

In other words, make calculated decisions to disregard certain possibilities and when an option shows up, test it against your not-to-pursue list. It will not only keep you from trouble but also save you lots of thinking time.

Think hard once and then just consult your list instead of having to make up your mind whenever a new door cracks open. Most doors are not worth entering, even when the handle seems to turn so effortlessly.”

“When it comes to pattern recognition, we are oversensitive. Regain your scepticism.

If you think you have discovered a pattern, first consider it pure chance. If it seems too good to be true, find a mathematician and have the data tested statistically.

And if the crispy parts of your pancake start to look a lot like Jesus’ face, ask yourself: if he really wants to reveal himself, why doesn’t he do it in Times Square or on CNN?”

“Whether we like it or not, we are puppets of our emotions. We make complex decisions by consulting our feelings, not our thoughts.

Against our best intentions, we substitute the question, “What do I think about this?” with “How do I feel about this?”

So, smile! Your future depends on it.”

“While his school was closed due to an outbreak of the plague in 1666–67, twenty-five-year-old Isaac Newton showed his professor, Isaac Barrow, what research he was conducting in his spare time.

Barrow immediately gave up his job as a professor and became a student of Newton. What a noble gesture. What ethical behavior. When was the last time you heard of a professor vacating his post in favor of a better candidate?

And when was the last time you read about a CEO clearing out his desk when he realized that one of his twenty thousand employees could do a better job?”

“You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand.

It’s not terribly important how big the circle is. But it is terribly important that you know where the perimeter is.”