Learn to Think in Color

What Makes Intelligent People Believe Things That Aren’t True? Intelligent people can believe false things because analytical ability is only one part of belief formation. Motivation, repetition, trust, social influence, and prior commitment all affect what evidence people examine and how willing they are to revise a conclusion. Intelligence usually provides an advantage. People who reason carefully are often better at distinguishing strong evidence from weak evidence and true information from false information. The mistake is assuming that reasoning ability automatically guarantees good judgment. The same mind that can dismantle a weak argument can also construct a sophisticated defense of a preferred conclusion. Intelligence is a tool, and the result depends partly on what the tool is being used to accomplish. Theranos and the Evidence Around the Claim Elizabeth Holmes built Theranos around an extraordinary promise. The company claimed that extensive blood testing could be performed ...

Are Arguments Decided by Facts or Emotions? Arguments are influenced by both facts and emotions, but the two play different roles. Evidence helps determine what is true, while emotions and values influence which consequences matter, how people interpret evidence, and whether they are willing to reconsider a position. Arguments become confusing when these roles are mixed together. Two people may appear to disagree over evidence when they actually agree on the facts and disagree about priorities. Alternatively, they may share the same values while making different predictions about what a particular policy or decision will produce. Understanding which type of disagreement is taking place can be more useful than immediately searching for another fact. Facts Can Establish What Happened Suppose two employees disagree about whether their company should continue allowing remote work. One produces data indicating that individual productivity increased when employees worked from home, while the...

What Can You Learn About Any Public Company? Public companies disclose extensive information about their finances, operations, leadership, incentives, ownership, and risks. Anyone can use that information to develop a meaningful understanding of a business, provided they know where to look and how to connect the evidence. Imagine receiving a job offer from a company you know primarily by name. Before accepting, you want to understand whether the business is financially healthy, which products generate its revenue, how much debt it carries, and whether its leadership team has incentives aligned with the strategy being described. For a U.S. public company, much of the information needed to investigate those questions is freely available. The challenge is turning thousands of pages of disclosure into a manageable research process. Start With SEC Filings The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission maintains EDGAR, a database containing filings submitted by public companies and other regula...

What’s the Economic Cost of Never Discovering What You’re Good At? Never discovering what you are unusually good at can create economic losses through lower earnings, missed skill development, weaker allocation of talent, and productive opportunities that never become visible. The total cost cannot be calculated directly. Economists can compare wages, occupations, measured skills, and productivity, but they cannot observe the businesses people never started, professions they never considered, or abilities they never had the opportunity to demonstrate. Research on skills mismatch provides a partial view of the problem. It shows what can happen when people possess measurable capabilities that their work does not fully use. Having Ability and Using Ability Are Different Consider two workers with similar intelligence, education, and motivation. One discovers a strong ability to understand people, negotiate agreements, and build relationships. They enter business development and spend years...

How Do You Maintain Lifelong Relationships? Lifelong relationships survive when people continue making room for one another while updating their understanding of who the other person has become. Shared history creates a foundation, but history alone cannot maintain a relationship after the circumstances that created it have disappeared. Many close relationships begin because two people repeatedly occupy the same space. School, work, neighborhoods, sports, clubs, and other shared activities provide opportunities to talk without requiring anyone to organize the interaction. Closeness can therefore develop partly because life keeps putting the same people together. Eventually, those circumstances change. A relationship that once maintained itself becomes something that has to be maintained deliberately. Shared Circumstances Often Create the Relationship Friendships can feel effortless when people see one another every day. Students spend hours together, colleagues share projects and probl...