Annie Duke

Obviously, there's also the other problem, which is people tend to be overconfident.

and overly optimistic.

So we will often estimate our chances of success as much higher.

We know that that's a problem as well.

So overconfidence is just a really huge problem.

Both of the problems, if we're sort of in the pessimistic side, where we're really just focused on the downside outcomes that could occur, or we're overly optimistic or overconfident, where we're really overestimating the chances that good things can happen,

it's going to mess our forecasts up.

So whichever bias you're subject to, you actually want to get a better view of what the world might hold for you.

And one of the best ways to do that is to get somebody else's opinion.

So we're subject to these biases where we might overestimate the chances of good stuff happening or we might be particularly risk averse and afraid of the bad things that are happening.

But those are those are biases that we have for ourselves and our own decisions.

So one of the best things that you can do is go find yourself a mentor or someone to help you out and sort of explain what the decision is that you're facing.

and ask them what they think the possible outcomes are and what options they think that you should be considering because they'll generally see the world more clearly than you see yourself.

There's just all sorts of evidence that shows when you look at people giving other people advice, the quality of the advice that they give to other people is much higher than the sort of what we would consider the quality of the advice that you give to yourself.

So we should be seeking out people to give us advice, to help with the advice that we're giving ourselves.

Yeah, and there's recent research that actually shows that when people are struggling with a really hard decision, if you have them go give advice to somebody else who's struggling with the same decision, it helps them with their own decision.

There's something about, as you just said, like giving advice to somebody else, it's not your struggle anymore.

And that allows you to see it so much more clearly.

You know, once we start something, we think that stopping it is like a failure.

It's a sign of being weak-willed.