Books in 5 minutes

  The Art of the Good Life – by Rolf Dobelli Summary: Chapter 1: Mental Accounting   Living a good life has a lot to do with interpreting facts in a constructive way. Try to mentally account for things like expenses, say, in a way that will keep you happy. Chapter 2: The Fine Art of Correction A good life is only achieved by constantly readjusting your plan according to your situation. Do not be reluctant of changing your original plans as there are no flawless plans. Chapter 3: The Pledge Be unwavering for important goals/ principles in your life. Inflexibility in these goals is what will help you achieve them. Chapter 4: Black Box Thinking Whenever making big decisions, write down whatever is going through your mind. If the decision turns out to be a dud, return to these notes to analyze where exactly you went wrong. Chapter 5: Counterproductivity Some technologies, which at first glance seem to be time-savers, can actually be time-sinks. For example, ...

  The Origin of Brands  – by Al & Laura Ries Summary: Chapter 1: The Great Tree of Life Similar to Darwin’s Great Tree of Life, the authors talk about the great tree of products & services.   New categories arise from the divergence of existing categories (For e.g., Laptops from Computers) Chapter 2: Predicting the Future You don’t have to be a visionary to predict the future. All categories will diverge, creating opportunities for new brands. The biggest mistake in marketing is when an existing brand stretches itself to cover a new category. Chapter 3: Divide and Conquer Branding opportunities don’t lie in the pursuit of existing markets, they lie in the creation of new markets. Chapter 4: Gradual Change vs. Divergence There are 2 fundamental principles of evolution: 1) Gradual change (Competition between individuals improves the species), 2) Divergence (Competition between species drives them further and further apart. Similarly in the market, ...

  The Art of Thinking Clearly - Rolf Dobelli Summary: Chapter 1: Why You Should Visit Cemeteries (Survivorship Bias) We are more likely to hear about success stories than stories of failures. This can lead to us overestimating our chances of success. One must always look into their true chance of success before jumping into something. Chapter 2: Does Harvard Make You Smarter (Swimmer’s Body Illusion) We often confuse the end goal with a barrier of selection. For example, many people believe swimming will help them get their desired physique, but in reality, great swimmers have achieved success because they were born with a body meant for swimming. Similarly, the reason many successful people have graduated from Harvard may not necessarily be because Harvard has extraordinary teachers, but because only the brightest minds are able to enter Harvard. Chapter 3: Why You See Shapes in Clouds (Clustering Illusion) We are oversensitive when it comes to pattern recognition a...

  The Psychology of Money  – by Morgan Housel Summary: Chapter 1: No One’s Crazy Everyone makes their financial decisions based on their past experiences. Even if whatever they experienced may be an extremely rare occurrence and not really representative of the market, in their mind it’s something that would happen often. Chapter 2: Luck & Risk Luck plays a significant role in your success. Success can be achieved through hard work, but it’s not guaranteed. Hard-working people can also meet failure, but it does not necessarily mean they are lazy. One should be more understanding when analyzing their failures. Focus less on individuals, and more on broader patterns as they are easier to replicate than individual successes Chapter 3: Never enough one should have a clear line where they are satisfied with what they have. Once you reach that mark, don't push the line farther away. Many people lose everything they have due to their greed. There is no need to risk ...