Is it possible to prepare for an unpredictable future? What if the key to navigating uncertainty isn’t trying to forecast what’s coming next?
In Same as Ever, Morgan Housel offers a fresh perspective on planning ahead. Instead of attempting to predict specific events, he focuses on timeless patterns of human behavior that remain constant across history.
Continue reading for our overview of Morgan Housel’s Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes.
Overview of Same as Ever (Morgan Housel)
If you’re looking for a crystal ball to help you see into the future, you might want to invest in a mirror and a history book instead. In Same as Ever, Morgan Housel argues that—try as you might—you can’t predict the future or ensure that your plans will turn out the way you hope. But you can learn certain rules of human behavior and life that remain constant over time. These rules will help you make reasonable assumptions about the future—and that’s as close as it gets to having a crystal ball.
(Shortform note: Other experts, called superforecasters, have a different approach to making confident predictions about the future. In Superforecasting, Dan Gardner and Philip Tetlock explain that instead of relying on fixed rules about human behavior and society, superforecasters employ analytical skills. For example, they break down seemingly impossible questions into smaller and smaller questions. Eventually, they can separate truly unknown questions from questions about which they can make educated guesses. In addition, they exercise objectivity by seeking information about a situation from all possible sources. They allow the data to shape their interpretation and are willing to change their predictions in light of new information.)
Housel is a New York Times best-selling author, financial expert, and journalist. His earlier work, The Psychology of Money, explores the psychological and behavioral aspects of financial decision-making. In Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes, he picks up the behavioral lens again, this time to analyze historical patterns. He identifies 23 rules that explain human behavior, clarify history, and offer insights into the future. Our guide organizes Housel’s rules into two key insights: 1) You can’t predict the future, but 2) You can learn to navigate an uncertain world.
Part 1: You Can’t Predict the Future
The first rule of trying to predict the future is that you can’t. Although we crave certainty about what will happen in the next few days or decades, Housel makes clear that we can’t ever know for certain. We organize his insights into three major blind spots that keep us from seeing far ahead: our misunderstandings about innovation, risk, and ramifications. We explore Housel’s insights on these blind spots below.
Insight #1: We Can’t Predict Risk
Our limited perspective of the world—what we are aware of or can imagine—leads us to underestimate what we don’t know. However, the biggest risks are precisely the events no one sees coming. No one prepares for them, so the damage they cause is exponential.
Since you can’t predict the biggest risks, Housel says you should prepare for the unexpected. Instead of trying to make a perfect plan that accounts for every risk, try to be nimble and resilient enough to recover from unexpected setbacks. In financial planning, for instance, this means saving more than you need and taking on less debt than you can handle.
Insight #2: We Can’t Predict Innovation
Housel argues that major innovations build gradually, often through combinations of seemingly minor discoveries. However, we can’t see these small advances percolating and combining. Today’s overlooked developments contain the seeds of future breakthroughs. For example, Housel describes how the US Department of Defense created ARPANET in the 1960s to manage Cold War secrets, but it evolved into the Internet, a transformational technology no one saw coming.
Insight #3: We Can’t Predict the Ramifications of Minor Actions
According to Housel, many significant historical changes resulted from chance events or minor choices that snowballed into major consequences. For example, Housel explains how the Lusitania, a passenger ship, triggered the United States’ entry into World War I (1914-1918). In 1915, the Lusitania was crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The captain reduced the ship’s speed to save some money, so the Lusitania fell a day behind its original schedule. The delay put the ship in the path of a German torpedo, which hit the boat and killed over 1,000 passengers. The tragic coincidence mobilized public support for the US to become involved in the war.
Part 2: You Can Learn to Navigate an Uncertain World
If the future is so uncertain, how can you make plans or pursue your goals? Housel offers several insights that can help you find your way forward. To boost clarity, we’ve organized Housel’s remaining ideas into three principles for navigating an uncertain world:
- Understand human behavior
- Future-proof your mind
- Future-proof your plans
Principle #1: Understand Human Behavior
Instead of trying to predict events, Housel suggests you redirect your efforts to anticipating reactions. Keep an open mind about the specifics of what the future holds. As events unfold, try to anticipate how people will react based on fundamental motivations, including fear and greed.
To help you anticipate human behavior, we’ve brought together Housel’s insights on human psychology into six rules about our behavior:
Rule #1: People Follow Incentives
To understand what people are likely to do, you need to understand their incentives. Housel argues that incentives, such as the promise of profit or of belonging to a group, are the most powerful force in the world. They can drive otherwise good, honest people to justify and defend nearly anything. Financial incentives can be powerful, but cultural and social incentives are often more compelling because people fear social rejection and will take extreme actions to protect their connection to their community.
You can use this insight to understand yourself better, too. This will help you make sense of your own decision-making and behavior. To check your incentives, ask yourself which of your current views would change if your incentives were different. If you believe none would change, you’re likely blinded by your current incentives. For example, if you support a particular work project because it comes with a bonus, but would oppose it if the bonus were removed, that reveals how your incentives influence your views.
Rule #2: People Follow the Best Story
Housel argues that compelling stories triumph over facts and logic in capturing attention and driving success because they simplify complex ideas and unite diverse audiences. As a result, the most persuasive ideas aren’t always the most accurate or original, but those with the most engaging stories. Conversely, many great ideas and products fail to reach their potential because their champions don’t tell their stories compellingly.
Use your understanding of this rule to avoid blindly following compelling stories. Ask yourself if any of your beliefs are the result of good marketing rather than accuracy, or whether you might be missing out on important truths simply because they come from lackluster storytellers. For instance, you might realize you favor a popular diet not because it’s scientifically proven, but because the people promoting it tell more compelling stories than those used to promote more effective alternatives.
Rule #3: People Learn and Change Through Experience
Housel says firsthand experience changes your understanding and behavior in ways that theoretical knowledge can’t. This is why plans often collapse when they confront the emotional reality of firsthand experience. To minimize the gap between how you think you or others will react in a given situation and the actual reaction, don’t overestimate your future preferences and responses.
In addition, consider how your past life experiences influence your current beliefs. Housel writes that major traumatic events leave lasting psychological impacts that change people’s behaviors and worldviews. Keep this in mind to help you approach conflicts with greater empathy and understanding. Rather than assuming others are misinformed or irrational, ask yourself what they might have experienced that makes them think or behave differently from you.
Rule #4: People Aren’t One-Dimensional
We often expect role models to have only positive traits, which creates unrealistic expectations. Exceptional abilities and troubling traits often come from the same personality characteristics. For example, persistence can turn into stubbornness, and discipline can become rigidity. Housel suggests that you accept exceptional people as complete packages rather than trying to separate good traits from bad.
Rule #5: People Hide Their Struggles
We tend to think others have it easier or better. Housel argues that people’s public personas typically mask their struggles and difficulties. We see only the polished, filtered version of others’ lives, businesses, and careers, while being acutely aware of our own challenges. However, everyone deals with problems they’re not disclosing. For example, a successful entrepreneur’s social media may highlight achievements but rarely reveal the setbacks and failures she faced along the way. Being aware of this tendency can help you be more forgiving of yourself and others, and recognize that most accomplishments come from ordinary people who persevered—not from people who didn’t struggle.
Principle #2: Future-Proof Your Mind
Understanding human behavior is helpful, but you can also actively shape how you think about the future and the actions you take in response. When it comes to thinking about the future, Housel shares several strategies to help you manage how you think about it, rather than stress over the specifics of what will happen when. By adopting the right mindsets, you can future-proof your mind: teach yourself how to think about the future and deal with it productively. This section will discuss five strategies for future-proofing your mind that Housel refers to throughout his book:
- Manage your expectations
- Make the most of hardship… and beware ease
- Be an optimistic pessimist
- Lose the need for certainty
- Understand how compounding works
Strategy #1: Manage Your Expectations
To avoid being unprepared for the future, start by having reasonable expectations. Housel argues that your happiness depends more on your expectations than your circumstances. The smaller the gap between what you expect and what happens, the more content you’ll be. This means that you won’t find happiness if you focus exclusively on improving your circumstances but let your expectations skyrocket.
Instead, Housel suggests managing your expectations with the same effort you put into improving your circumstances. Doing so will help narrow the gap between them. This approach leads to more happiness than solely trying to improve your circumstances, since your expectations are often easier to control than your circumstances. For example, if you expect steady progress rather than instant success in your career, you’re more likely to appreciate small wins along the way.
Strategy #2: Make the Most of Hardship… and Beware Ease
Although you can’t know what will happen in the future, you can be sure that it will involve some measure of hardship. Housel believes any worthwhile accomplishment inherently requires difficulty and pain. You have to pay a price for an achievement, either in stress, uncertainty, inefficiency, or discomfort. Instead of trying to eliminate all challenges and discomforts, recognize that enduring pain is part of what makes your accomplishments valuable and worthwhile. Instead of looking for shortcuts to avoid the discomfort, get through it to reach the goal on the other side.
Further, Housel argues that major innovations arise from periods of crisis rather than prosperity. Stress focuses attention by creating a level of urgency and motivation that comfortable times can’t match. When people face existential threats or economic collapse, they collaborate more effectively, pursue radical ideas, and overcome bureaucratic obstacles that seem insurmountable in normal times. While a completely carefree life might sound appealing, it could prevent the very struggle that drives innovation and meaningful achievement. For example, if you’re training for a marathon, you must endure physical pain and setbacks, but it’s precisely that struggle that makes crossing the finish line so meaningful and rewarding.
Strategy #3: Be an Optimistic Pessimist
Just as hardship and progress are intertwined, optimism and pessimism are more effective together. Housel says pessimism helps us prepare for risks, while optimism gives up hope for the future despite uncertain evidence. To be an optimistic pessimist, remember that life is full of unavoidable, constant setbacks that don’t prevent eventual progress. For example, when learning a new skill like playing an instrument, expecting setbacks and mistakes (pessimism) helps you prepare and stay patient, while maintaining hope that you’ll improve over time (optimism) keeps you motivated to continue practicing.
Housel shares the story of Admiral Jim Stockdale, a Vietnam prisoner of war and an optimistic pessimist. During his time as a POW, he knew he’d have to endure torture for many months or even years, but he still had unwavering faith that he’d eventually be released. After he was freed, someone asked him who had the hardest time in captivity, and he said it was the optimists. They naively believed they would be freed soon, so their spirits were crushed with every new day that passed. Stockdale’s approach balanced absolute faith that things would eventually improve (optimism) with acceptance of the long-term nature of his situation (pessimism).
Strategy #4: Lose the Need for Certainty
Housel believes that humans value certainty over accuracy. However, in attempting to get certainty about what will happen, we delude ourselves with definitive but inaccurate predictions. Instead, Housel says you should adjust how you think about the future: Recognize that certainty is an illusion and practice probabilistic thinking.
For example, say a group of people who want to know whether there will be a natural disaster over the next year asks two experts. Expert 1 says there will definitely be a natural disaster. Expert 2 says there’s a 45% chance of a natural disaster. Most people will follow Expert 1’s lead because they were definitive, even though Expert 2’s estimate is probably more accurate.
Strategy #5: Understand How Compounding Works
As we’ve seen, seemingly small changes, accumulated over time, create massive outcomes, but humans often don’t have the patience to wait for them. Housel writes that progress is gradual and often invisible, while setbacks are sudden and command attention. Understanding the dynamic of compounding versus our natural human impatience can help you keep your eyes on the prize.
To leverage compounding, Housel suggests you prioritize projects that are sustainable over time and maintain perspective during challenging times. For example, consistently dedicating a small amount of time each day to learning a skill—even when progress feels slow—can lead to remarkable improvement over the years through steady, compounding effort.
Principle #3: Future-Proof Your Plans
In addition to future-proofing your mind, you can future-proof your plans by limiting four vulnerabilities: size, complexity, efficiency, and complacency. This section discusses five strategies Housel offers for protecting yourself from these vulnerabilities:
- Think long term.
- Keep it simple.
- Keep it less than perfect.
- Keep it manageable.
- Don’t let down your guard.
Strategy #1: Think Long Term
To maximize your chances of success, prioritize long-term goals over immediate results. Housel explains that long-term thinking can be far more profitable than most people realize, largely because so few can maintain it. Long-term thinking requires patience and resilience—qualities that are tested when short-term setbacks occur. Many people abandon their long-term strategies at the first sign of difficulty, missing out on the substantial rewards that come from staying the course. As a result, those who maintain a long-term perspective often achieve greater success, precisely because they’re willing to endure challenges that cause others to quit.
To help you turn your long-term plans into reality, Housel reminds you that thinking long term doesn’t exempt you from experiencing short-term hardships. Accept them and don’t let go of the plan. In addition, be flexible with your timeline. If you expect your plans to succeed by a strict deadline, you’re putting yourself at the mercy of factors beyond your control. For example, if you’re launching a small business, you might face slow customer growth. But by staying committed and adjusting your strategy, you can still build a thriving business over time.
Strategy #2: Keep It Simple
Housel says we often pursue complex approaches when simpler ones would be more effective. Complexity is comforting because we feel it gives us control and signals that we put effort into the process. However, Housel believes that most fields are governed by a few core principles rather than countless details.
To avoid being seduced by complexity that doesn’t improve results, start by identifying the few variables that drive most outcomes in any situation. Then, embrace simple but effective solutions that leverage these proven variables. For example, if you’re a small business owner, you might focus on building strong customer relationships and managing cash flow—two core factors—rather than getting bogged down in overly detailed marketing strategies or complicated financial models.
Strategy #3: Keep It Less Than Perfect
In addition to avoiding unnecessary complexity, you should avoid extreme efficiency. Housel argues that pursuing flawless efficiency often creates unexpected vulnerabilities and prevents adaptability. Think of flawless efficiency as a perfectly tuned machine where every cog fits together without any slack—while this might seem ideal, it leaves no room for error or adjustment. If a single cog jams or breaks, the entire machine seizes up and stops working. In contrast, a machine built with a bit of flexibility—some slack between parts—can absorb shocks and keep running even when one part fails.
Similarly, building some inefficiency into your schedule creates space for adaptability and resilience. Resist the cultural pressure to be constantly productive and allow yourself time for unstructured thinking. This seemingly inefficient use of your time is essential for solving complex problems and developing creative solutions. For example, regularly set aside time to read and reflect without an agenda.
Strategy #4: Keep It Manageable
Housel writes that pushing good ideas beyond their natural limits often transforms them into failures. There’s an optimal scale and pace for growth, beyond which things break down. To keep your good ideas manageable, let them grow at their natural pace and to their natural limit, instead of using artificial methods to create exponential, rapid growth. For example, when starting a fitness routine, you might gradually increase your workouts over months rather than trying to do intense daily sessions immediately. This will prevent injury and burnout, making your progress more sustainable.
Strategy #5: Don’t Let Your Guard Down
Finally, remember that no success is permanent enough to allow complacency. Housel says that many people let their guard down after achieving some success because they assume it’s there to stay. This complacency leads them to stop working on their skills and become less vigilant to potential problems. Worse, extended periods of stability and ease inherently create the conditions for future instability and chaos. Housel argues that, when things are calm, people become complacent and take on more risk, which eventually leads to a crisis.
To avoid crises born from complacency, never rest on past achievements. Instead, continue learning and evolving to keep up with changing times and secure new successes. For example, if you stop updating your skills after a promotion, you may find yourself unprepared when industry standards shift.
