Shortform Books

Nassim Taleb: Rare Events Are Not That Rare

Can you think of a rare event—that happened either in history or in your personal life? Looking back, how likely is it to it happen again? More generally, do you think people under- or overestimate the likelihood of rare events? Rare events happen infrequently enough that we sometimes are lulled into believing they’re rarer than they actually are so that when they do happen, we are more surprised than we should be. According to Nassim Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness, people tend underestimate the likelihood of rare events for these reasons: 1) we don’t properly interpret the past,

The Best Advice for Investors: 12 Powerful Rules

What is the best advice for investors? What are Burton Malkiel’s 12 rules for successful investments? From maximizing your savings to avoiding unnecessary taxes and diversifying your portfolio, Burton Malkiel offers the best advice for investors in his book A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Knowing his helpful rules will help you make the most out of your investments. Find the best advice for investors below.

Learning Comprehension: Understand, Don’t Memorize

What exactly is learning comprehension? What role does comprehension play in learning? Is there anything you can do to comprehend and absorb new knowledge faster and more effectively? In the context of learning, comprehension refers to gaining a deep understanding of the underlying principles in order to understand how they apply to different situations. There are two steps to improving your comprehension of the learning material: 1) rule learning and 2) structure building. Learn more about how you can put them to use to help you learn and study more effectively.

What Are the Benefits of Social Prescribing?

What are the benefits of social prescribing? Why is Big Pharma against social prescribing? The major benefits of social prescribing are holistic treatment, community support, and opportunities to reconnect with nature. Social prescribing ensures that the doctor will not only prescribe drugs to treat biological issues but also address environmental factors. Big Pharma doesn’t like this because it treats the underlying cause of depression and threatens their profits. Read on to more about the benefits of social prescribing.

How Meaningful Relationships Help Combat Depression

Liking Bias: Why We Ignore Faults in People We Love

How do meaningful relationships help prevent loneliness and depression? Why does the collective lifestyle of Amish communities help members avoid loneliness and depression? Meaningful relationships restore us to our natural states as social animals living in close-knit societies. This prevents loneliness and provides a support group that can help you heal from depression. Amish communities share everything and everyone is regarded as family. This style of collective living creates a connected community and drastically reduces the risk of depression. Read on to learn more about how meaningful relationships help prevent depression.

Why Extrinsically Motivated People Get Depressed

How to Give up Your Materialistic Lifestyle

What does it mean to be extrinsically motivated? Why are materialistic people vulnerable to depression? You are an extrinsically motivated person if your sense of fulfillment in life comes from reaching external milestones like acquiring material things, climbing the corporate leader, social recognition, and so on. An overreliance on extrinsic motivation can lead to depression because the joy you get from material things is always short-lived. Read on to learn more about the dangers of being extrinsically motivated.

The 5 Company Capabilities That Lead to Success

Creating Company Capabilities That Enable Success

What are company capabilities? How do you build company capabilities? Company capabilities are the resources and competencies a company needs to succeed better than its competitors. You build core business capabilities through customer research, innovation, branding, and an effective product-to-consumer strategy. Read more about how to build company capabilities that are vital for marketplace success.

Religion and Mental Illness: Are They Connected?

What is the relationship between religion and mental illness? Is a belief in God a sign of psychopathology? Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck explores the connection between religion and mental illness in his book The Road Less Traveled. Examining the stories of two different women—one a theist and the other an atheist—Peck determines that dogmatism, rather than particular beliefs, is a more likely cause of psychopathology. Read more to learn about the connection between religion and mental illness.

Your Own Personal Religion: Revising Your Worldview

What’s a personal religion? Do you have one? Whether you realize it or not, you have a personal religion—also known as a worldview. It’s your perception of the world and your relationship to it. You might be hanging on to an inherited worldview that doesn’t reflect reality, causing dissonance in your life. You could benefit from understanding how worldview works—and how to revise your own. Read more to learn about personal religion.

Models of Intelligence: Measuring IQ and More

How do you measure intelligence? Do you think it’s possible to come up with an objective and all-encompassing metric of intelligence? If the purpose of learning is to move through life more effectively, the measure of your intelligence should be how well you navigate each day. But, for many reasons, people want a way to quantify cumulative intelligence. There are several models of intelligence that people have developed to understand this. Read more about the most famous and influential models of intelligence and how they compare.