Bet on Yourself: A Review of Annie Duke's 'Thinking in Bets'

E15 BET ON YOURSELF_ A REVIEW OF ANNIE DUKE'S 'THINKING IN BETS'

Transcript

Dalton (00:00.846) Welcome to VentureStep podcast where we discuss entrepreneurship, industry trends, and the occasional book review. Get ready to up your decision game. Today we're reviewing Thinking in Bats by Annie Duke, a poker prodigy turned decision making mastermind. Annie Duke deals out practical strategies for making bold informed decisions from calculating probability to outsmarting cognitive biases. Let's Annie up and dive in to the key takeaways to transform our decision processes.

Before we dive in, I'm your host Dalton. I've got a bit of a mix of background in programming and data science and insurance offline. You can find me running, building my side business or lost in a good book. You can listen to this podcast in video or audio format on YouTube. If audio is more your thing, you can find this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. Today we're going to be discussing Annie Duke, like who she is. I'll give a little bit of background.

We'll talk about some key concepts and strategies and how those roll up. I think how those key concepts roll up into strategies that are recommended to deploy from the book that would improve your decision processes. And then we'll briefly talk about some applications and takeaways for myself. And then we'll end it with a conclusion. Okay, who is Annie Du?

Annie Duke is, I don't know if she still plays, but we could say is, she's still alive, so, is a professional poker player and a renowned author, speaker, and decision -making expert who has made a name for herself in the poker world as a professional poker player. She's got two decades of experience sitting at the table. She's won numerous championships, including the 2004

World Poker Series, which is like the highest it gets. Like that's that's the best tournament you can have under your belt to win the tournament of champions. In 2010 and the National Heads Up Poker Championship. She has a impressive track record in a strategic approach that differs from her peers, and that approach has garnered respect and a nickname, the Duchess, the Duchess of Poker.

Dalton (02:32.206) The main premise of her book, Thinking in Bets, Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All of the Facts embraces the unknown and uncertainties. You assess the probabilities and the unknown risks of the decision that you're making. Try to avoid cognitive biases, making informed choices under pressure.

and learning from failure and having a good feedback loop. Those things are kind of the key concepts of the book. And we'll touch on that in just a moment in a little bit more detail.

So thinking in bets versus thinking in certainties is one of the key concepts that I identified from the book. And he argues that many people think in certainties, meaning they have an approach to their decisions where they're certain in the outcome and the outcome from their decision becomes certain. And if...

that's not what happens, then it's bad luck or something unfortunate happened. It's not related to their decision. And Andy proposes that, hey, decisions aren't absolute, they're actually a probability. You have a probability that these things will happen. It might be close to certain, but it can never be 100 % of the time. And so you have to...

think about things as if every decision is a wager, not necessarily that you yourself are wagering money with your friend in your every conversation, you're like, well, I'm gonna get up and get water in five minutes. And you wanna bet on that? Like, no, not like that. It's just having that kind of approach, like, hey, there's something on the line here. And am I sure about what I'm saying?

Dalton (04:42.574) Have I thought about the alternate scenarios? And altering your mindset and recognizing that every decision is a wager with uncertain outcomes encourages you to consider multiple possibilities, weigh the odds, and prepare for these different scenarios. And thinking in bets helps make informed decisions.

when you don't have all the information. And another thing that's talked about is understanding probability and risk. This isn't one of these things where you're like, okay, well, I'm not good at math and I can't calculate probabilities. It's not like that. It's more of considering the possibility of different outcomes and how likely are those things. And so,

maybe you're at your house and you've got people over and there's kids running around and there's a water glass halfway off the counter and there's kids running around the house. I would wager that if no one moves that cup inward at the end of the day, that cup's going to break. The kids are going to hit it, something's going to happen and the cup's broken. There's water all over the floor.

Dalton (06:08.846) That's what that entails is, okay, are you waiting these possible outcomes of the decision that you're making? And are you doing so with out cognitive biases with the confirmation bias or, you know, an anchoring bias or are you living in this social bubble?

where you're just confirming your beliefs or are you taking into account all of these different factors when it comes to making these decisions and trying to make the best informed decision that you can with the limited information that you have.

Dalton (06:54.624) This is something where it kind of combines the other concepts where you're thinking that it's not uncertainties. You understand the probability and risks. And then when you're assessing the probability and risks, you're also embracing the uncertainties and unknowns. And then you're avoiding these cognitive biases and confirming your beliefs and only seeking out information that confirms that.

that your decision is a good decision and not waiting the devil's advocate or having a red room situation where people are calling and question your thought process and the decision that you propose.

And then there's also anchoring yourself in this information that you might have gotten years ago that is not necessarily true, where maybe, I think the example in the book was something about sugar. And back in the day, there was research that was funded by big food companies, and they stated that fat is bad for you.

and sugar should replace those fats, I guess. And a lot of the foods were injected with these sugars and fats were taken out. And there's a lot of labels about low fat and these low fat foods actually cause heart problems because they had low fat, but then they had all these sugars in there and so that we had a big issue with obesity and

and heart issues and diabetes. And then there was research that came out, you know, I don't know how long, 15 years, 20 years later, saying, hey, like this actually, this actually isn't true. And so that's kind of those things where like, are you anchored in the first information that was given to you? Or are you okay with altering your perception? And even if things that you believed in have changed, are you...

Dalton (09:02.926) accepting of that belief, are you killing the messenger or are you killing the message? So anchoring confirmation bias would be like killing, not confirmation bias, sorry. Anchoring bias would be you killing the message. And then there's also having an indifference about where or who the message comes from.

And when I say where or who, I'm not saying some like random tabloid off the internet. I'm saying, okay, like maybe, maybe you're right leaning from center or left leaning from center and, and maybe someone on the opposite side of the aisle says something that is informative and in enlightening about the situ situation. And it changes how you potentially would feel about something. But since it came from so and so,

I, you know, that's not me. I don't.

I won't entertain that or something like that. But if someone on your side of your ideologies or political beliefs says the same thing, you're like, wow, that's so informative. That changes my perception. I'm so thankful that you brought that up. And so that would be killing the messenger. And so you wanna avoid doing those things. You want to be an acceptant of...

who the message comes from, like not having a feeling of doubt and having this cognitive biases of, okay, this message is coming from so -and -so, so obviously it's, I can't listen to them because they don't believe what I believe or something like that. And then also accepting that your beliefs could change with new information. And that also entails not accepting everything that you first see.

Dalton (11:05.358) Just because you see something for the first time, you shouldn't anchor yourself in that information. You should be open to hearing other people's opinions and you should be listening to new information that calls in question the original. And so that's important with fake news and all these other things that are going on the Internet nowadays that are more important when it comes up to election years, which we are.

we're coming to. So to recap that, you want to be thinking in bets versus in uncertainties as your outcomes aren't absolute. And thinking in bets allows you to consider alternate scenarios. You want to understand the probability and risk of these possible outcomes.

you want to avoid implementing.

or I guess deteriorating your decision making skills by including cognitive biases, the confirmation bias, anchoring bias. And then you also wanna embrace that you don't have all the information and there are gonna be some unknowns.

Dalton (12:30.062) When you combine all of those things, you get to a key concept called...

Dalton (12:39.694) Well, it's not called it. So you get to a key concept of resulting and that's something you don't want to do is if you're not doing those things, you would be resulting. And so you are not necessarily weighing all these other options and, and you're just looking for the result. And so one thing that's important in the book and one of the good takeaway to have is, okay,

You need to separate your decision and your outcome. Your decisions and outcomes are separated, and they should be because they're separate things. Does outcomes aren't, as we discussed earlier, outcomes aren't certain. So you can have some level of control of your outcome. But just because you have a good outcome doesn't necessarily mean you have a good decision. And just because you made good decisions doesn't mean you had a good outcome.

And I think that takes a little bit of rewiring for people because they're used to, okay, I ran this play in football or I did this thing in my sports or I studied X hours and I got a good grade.

Dalton (13:58.926) And everything in society is built on results and what results that you get and how are you doing at your company? What are the results and what were the results of this project and how are things doing in XYZ? And so, you know, we have this whole thing that the academics are built on results, workplace is built on results, financial reporting is built on results.

but they don't necessarily account for the decisions that were made along the way. And so you could have the good decisions, bad results, bad results, good decisions. And I always say an example of bad result or good result, bad decisions is if you went to the bar and you were drinking and you drove home and one, you didn't injure yourself and no one else got injured.

that's not a good decision. That was a good result. And you shouldn't be doing those things, obviously. And you're not going to be like, well, I drove home and, you know, it was fine. Everything worked out. That's not a good decision. Those were good results. And there's talk about where people had a lot of doubt with their decision that they made because they have a good, a bad result.

And one one crazy example that was talked about, and I'm sure everyone knows, is the worst play in Super Bowl history. That's what Washington Post called it. And there was many other news companies were saying like. Stupidest. Play ever. Worst results. In NFL history.

a shame to be a Seahawks fan. Horrible, horrible result.

Dalton (16:05.302) So Pete Carroll was the person who called for a pass on the one yard line against the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks were up by four points and there was a couple minutes left. And so.

I don't know the exact thought process between the like running down the clock and stuff like that. I'm pretty sure that if you pass the ball and the person goes out, it stops the clock. I'm not too familiar with football. I watch, I watch European football or, you know, soccer anyways. So they're on the one yard line in the pass gets intercepted. And so,

They lose the game as you guys know.

The Patriots intercept the pass and the news is killing Pete. And they're just hammering them. Like, this is the worst play in history. This is a horrible thing to do to the fans. I can't believe this. This is an acceptable, it says, worst play call in Super Bowl history will forever alter perception of the Seahawks and Patriots. Wall Street Post.

Dumbest call in Super Bowl history could be the beginning of the end of the Seattle Seahawks. That was Fox Sports. Seattle Times. Seahawks lost because the worst call in Super Bowl history. The New Yorker. A coach's terrible Super Bowl mistake.

Dalton (17:49.838) So these news outlets, the public perception was that this is a horrible thing that was done. It should have been a run. You've got one of the best running backs in history on the team run the ball. And that is a bad result, not necessarily a bad decision. And so when it was talked about the decision, because it was under scrutiny,

it was explained that, Hey, we do have a great running back, but we also have a great QB. And the thought process was the Patriots knew that we were probably going to run the ball. So they were going to blitz and potentially we could lose the ball fumble, or we could run down the clock too much and they score and get the ball back. And we're, we have no time. So,

The enemy thought that we were gonna pass. Passing would improve our time management. With those things combined, plus the risk of interception on the one yard line is 2%. It doesn't happen very often. With all those things combined, that is a bad outcome, good decision.

but society and Pete himself, Pete apologized on national television saying that he regretted his decision. And maybe you do that out of, maybe I don't know what's going on, maybe behind closed doors he was told you gotta apologize or we're letting you go or maybe the PR person told him, hey, like apologize and feel sympathy with the fans.

and it would improve your perception and your ratings, all these things that people worry about when they're at that social level.

Dalton (19:59.606) The decision wasn't bad, the outcome was. And there's another story about this separation of decision outcomes and Annie Duke was doing a work session with business owners and she went around the room and asked everyone, hey, who wants to talk about their worst business decision that they've ever made? And so one CEO said that,

By far my worst decision is firing the president of the company. And then he goes into detail saying that once we fired the president, it was difficult to find a replacement. We were having issues, revenues fell, brand awareness fell. We are falling behind our competitors at a greater rate.

We have all these issues and I deeply regret the decision of firing my president.

And then Annie Duke asked about the decision process. How did you come about firing the president? And the CEO says, okay, we got together, we met for several months, the board of directors and I and some other colleagues. We did a comparison analysis of our competitors.

and declared that with our employees and the skills of our employees and the market that we're in, we determined that we should be at X revenue. And then we did a exploratory analysis on why we thought that our employees weren't performing the level they should be, especially our salespeople.

Dalton (21:54.702) When we did that, we discovered the presidents at other companies that we were trying to compete with, they had a different set of skills than our current president. And we realized that for our president to get those skills, it would take too much time. So we decided that it would be best for us to go external and hire a new president firing the current one. And then Annie Duke,

asked the group, hey, do you think that was a well thought out decision process? And everyone agreed that, hey, like that's not, that was a bad outcome, not a bad decision, right? And those are two examples of once you combine these key concepts of thinking in bets,

versus uncertainties, understanding probability and risk, avoiding cognitive biases, embracing uncertainty and unknowns, then you can separate your decisions and your outcomes, and you can fall in with these possibilities of not necessarily getting a good outcome. It's unfortunate, but.

These things aren't certain. And so you just got to work towards and get it as close as you can with the information you have. And hopefully you get the optimal outcome, but that's, that's not guaranteed 100%.

Dalton (23:38.318) So this isn't necessarily a concept, sorry, a strategy, it's more of a concept slash strategy -ish thing. And so the stubbornness of beliefs, luck versus skill -fielding outcomes. And so there's a story in the book about this person that Annie Duke was playing with.

I think at like the Crystal Lounge or something. Something lounge, Crystal Lounge. Anyways, Nick the Greek was this hotel manager who would come over there and play at the lounge, the poker lounge. And Nick the Greek didn't win that much and he fell into the resulting, path of resulting, where you are.

fielding luck versus

you're feeling luck versus skill.

And what that looks like is like belief.

Dalton (24:46.574) luck, bet, outcome. That's kind of the thought process or the learning loop is what it's called in the book. And what you really need is a belief, a bet, an outcome, skill. And then somewhere in there is sometimes luck where luck goes your way. Luck doesn't go your way. But as long as you have a belief, a bet, an outcome,

and then you improve your skill, you improve your routine and you keep that feedback loop. And then occasionally there's going to be luck that goes your way, not your way. But with Nick, the Greek, he was really stubborn in his beliefs and he believed in luck versus skill because he didn't improve his skill. He just stuck to his beliefs and the skill.

over time, depending on your outcomes would improve your beliefs. Whereas it's not necessarily you are combining decisions with outcomes. And that's not, that's not what I'm saying is like when you make a bet and you have an outcome,

you do an analysis on your decision and say, OK, was decision that I made sound? Did I make this out of anger? Was I too tired when I was doing this or? You know, was my analysis good? And if I was missing things, then. Alter your skill and your beliefs. And then try again. But with Nick, the Greek, he he believed in.

playing cards that weren't high likelihood. And I think people know about pocket aces. And so Nick the Greek believed that pocket aces are the worst hand in poker. And Nick the Greek would fold with pocket aces and put them face up and say, and let everyone know that he folded a pocket aces because he doesn't play those hands because those are the worst hands to play because they're predictable.

Dalton (27:03.662) Nick the Greek part prided himself on being unpredictable and playing hands that you normally wouldn't play. The long story short is Nick the Greek never learned that he was relying on luck, not skill. And then that curtailed into him losing his job and not being able to play poker, but he was the sucker of the table.

And Annie Duke would try to play the hours that he would play so she could get some of his money. Which is pretty funny. But you want to have a learning loop of belief, bet, outcome, skill, and then that keeps going like a water cycle. And then somewhere in between there, there's there's luck, but you don't rely on luck, obviously.

Dalton (27:53.166) Another thing is, okay, now when you are speaking with people, maybe you should ask yourself what I bet on what I'm saying. And my friend Carter, he likes poker and he'll ask me, and he hasn't read this book, but he'll ask me stuff like, if I'm talking about something, he'll say, are you willing to wager on that? And he's basically checking me and saying, okay, how sure what you're saying are you?

And he does the same thing where he'd be like, well, honestly, I'm not that certain. I wouldn't wager on it. But this is what I heard or something like that versus, you know, sometimes you'd be like, well, I'm pretty sure I would be willing to wager money on this.

That's just how he talks. That's just his way of going about things. And he doesn't know about thinking in bets. But he thinks in bets. It's pretty funny. I told him about it yesterday when I finished the book. I finished this book yesterday. I guess I fall behind on my reading, unfortunately. Anyways, so Carter, my friend Carter, he checks me and checks himself, and I try to check myself as well, where if I'm talking about something,

I try to ask myself, OK, would I wager money on this? And if the answer is, hmm, I don't I don't think so, then I typically don't bring it up. And if I do bring it up, I say, hey, I'm not really I'm not really sure on this. This could be. Wishwash nonsense, but we're here and this is this is what's going on, blah, blah, blah.

But at least you let people know like, hey, I'm not that certain. And so that opens up the plane of people in your group correcting you and be like, hey, you know what you said was close, but actually it's this and this that affects the conversation or something like that. And you were close, but you need to include this information. This is crucial.

Dalton (30:04.686) And so it lets people know that, hey, what I'm saying, I'm not that sure about, like, don't don't take this as fact to it opens up discussion for people to correct what you're saying and allows you to get new information.

But typically if you're in a work setting like that, you probably shouldn't say anything if you're not sure. Especially if you're calling someone out. If you're trying to call someone out on stuff being wrong or them not executing on projects that were provided to them and you're like, man, I don't know if I'd bet on that. You definitely shouldn't bring it up. Anyways.

Dalton (30:52.782) Not all groups are created equal is another key concept. So in the book, Annie talks about truth -seeking groups, and those are the important groups of self -improvement and the groups of improving your feedback loop for the decisions that you make.

but those people are far and in between because you're making uncomfortable conversations with your peers slash friends are not making but having, or I guess you're making them as well because you're making truth seeking conversations. But with a truth seeking conversation, you're not necessarily talking about how you feel, something happened at work. I'm so unlucky that this happened to me and

so and so did this and that. That would be more venting. What a true seeking group would do is they would say, OK, let's let's talk about let's talk about what went down. Let's let's walk through the scenario. What what happened on your side? How did the other side react to the information that was provided to them? And should you alter your behavior?

or was this just a bad outcome? Were these bad decisions or was this a bad outcome? And from there, you try to discover what issues went down and how would you prevent them from happening in the future? And typically, I mean, I went on on this example, but typically you're supposed to focus on things that went well. I talk about stories that went well and then talk about those decisions.

And it's not necessarily, I want to pat myself in the back. I'm only talking about the good things. It's that it is easy to train yourself and others when you have a positive feedback loop. And it's easier to improve things that you're already doing correctly versus everything that you're doing wrong.

Dalton (33:04.686) With that being said, it's better what Annie's group did for poker for their true seeking group. They would focus on hands they won, but they didn't necessarily talk about the outcome of their hand. And so I would talk about, in this scenario, I would talk about, okay, can you guys help me with this set of decisions I made? And here's the situation, here's the background. These are the things I did. How do you feel about the things I did? And the group doesn't need to know.

the outcome, we just need to talk about the decision because the decision is what is important. Outcomes are not certain, but if you're making good decisions, you can have good outcomes consistently, but not always.

And so when you're focusing on these decisions that you made that had good outcomes, the group doesn't necessarily know whether you had good outcomes or bad outcomes. They're discussing your decision. And so in their group, they would only discuss hands that they won. And occasionally they would talk about bad hands, but typically they would focus on positive outcomes and then talk about the decisions that led to a positive outcome.

to retrain their habits and their thought processes.

Dalton (34:25.166) It's just difficult to get groups like that and not every group is truth seeking and you need to recognize.

who is your truth -seeking group and who isn't. You might have your paddleboard friends, your surfer friends, your...

Sorry, I had a cough. Your surfer friends, your paddleboard friends, your skater friends, or your Xbox or PlayStation friends, your work friends, and then you might have a certain group of friends that are truth -seeking, that are focused on self -improvement, but not everyone wants those things, and not everyone is signed up for those kind of conversations, because they're difficult, they're uncomfortable, and people typically don't want to have those. So.

You need to understand that not every group is going to be truth seeking and you need to accept your friends for who they are. And it's not a make or break. well, if you're not truth seeking, you're not around. It's not the conversation that you have. It's just that you understand that there's a place and a time for those conversations and those conversations aren't with everyone. And the guidelines of those conversations need to be set up beforehand.

Annie Duke does a great job of bringing in external information. She brings in this backronym called, and the difference between an acronym and a backronym is a backronym is an acronym that is a word and an acronym is just a set of letters that means something. So this is a backronym called kudos. Kudios? I don't know. Anyways, so the backronym stands for,

Dalton (36:17.934) Communism, data belongs to the group.

Universalism, apply uniform standards to claims and evidence regardless of whether they came from. Disinterestness, vigilance against potential conflicts that can influence the group's evaluation. Organized skepticism, discussion among the group to encourage engagement and dissent. And so there's some things that we talked about earlier that are brought up in this.

So apply uniform standards and claims and evidence regardless of where they came from. The regardless of where they came from is about the messenger. Is there someone that you don't necessarily like in your group or that you don't believe in, that they know what they're talking about? Are you accepting what they're saying as if they were coming from someone that...

you really like and that you admire. Disinterestness. So this is...

An example of not necessarily focusing on the results of the hand in this situation, more about the

Dalton (37:41.87) outcome of your not the outcome I mix the two the decision not the outcome and so if I brought up something to you and saying well I Really messed up at work today and this whole thing blew up in my face if I start off with that people are already Going to be swayed and what I'm saying they already I'm starting off with a negative sentiment

I'm starting off with, it's already my fault. I'm starting off with it blew up in my face. And so when the group hears that, that's all they hear. So the first thing they hear is something very negative and then it's my fault. It could be my fault, fine, but you gotta let the group decide that on their own with outlining the facts of the situation.

and the decisions that were made along the way and they could say, well, actually.

I think you made a bad decision here. And I assume that the outcome wasn't too good or something. But it's not, the outcome is not important. It's the decisions that were made along the way. I've been making sure that we understand that in this podcast. Because Annie Duke talks about it literally every couple of pages. She's like, okay, decisions and outcomes are separate. There's many examples of those.

Every example in the book is pretty much related to separating decisions without.

Dalton (39:22.382) And as I said, you want to focus on positive results versus negative. It's a more enjoyable feedback loop for training yourself and others. And another concept is the night Jerry versus day Jerry.

And the examples that she gave in the book were related to retirement. And so night Jerry and staying up late. So night Jerry stays up and it's from a Seinfeld skit apparently. So night Jerry is a night person and he stays up all night. It doesn't care about day Jerry and day Jerry wakes up every day and he's tired, grouchy and just drowsy.

He's in this brain fog because night Jerry just stays up every night and doesn't care about day Jerry.

And so the way that this is displayed is retirement. And there was an example given by the army where the army offered a 40 % discount or I guess 60%. So at 40 % value of the actual retirement that that person was going to get. If you got, if you want it early, you can get it right now at 40 % its value.

And so say it's worth a hundred thousand. I mean, that's not very much, but I guess we could, we could, we could up the numbers and just call it a mill. And so say a million dollars. So they're going to get a million and they get an offer and say, okay, you can get $400 ,000 right now, or you can get a million dollars at an, with the nudie payments for the rest of your life. You wouldn't get the million per month. You would get a million total.

Dalton (41:12.462) with these payments per month. And maybe the payments are spread out of 30 years and then at the end if you die before all the payments are done, then the annuities no more. It depends how it's structured. I don't wanna go into that, but anyways. So the main objective of what I was talking about was.

People took the offer, a lot of people, and it saved the government like crazy amount of money. I don't know the exact amount, so I'm not gonna say, but it was a lot.

And that was the night Jerry. Night Jerry was taking over of day Jerry, because day Jerry is the Jerry of tomorrow. That's the you of tomorrow. And the night you isn't really looking out for the person of tomorrow. They're just looking out for themselves. And so when you look yourself in the mirror 50 years from now and you took that.

retirement fund at a 60 % discount of what the actual value was because you wanted the money now.

you would be feeling some regrets. And that's called temporal discounting. It's a scientific term that they talk about in the book. And there's an example of retirement, there's some examples of just acting reckless as the night you and not thinking about the you of tomorrow.

Dalton (42:57.582) And some examples that they talk about is, you know, going out and drinking and not bring home or just, just doing things that night, Jerry wouldn't, or I keep saying that, that the day the, the person of tomorrow wouldn't agree with. And so there's a, there's a habit, you know, you could, you gotta just have a habit routine that disrupts those decision processes. If you have trouble recognizing them and.

intervening. And then there's also a rule called the 10, 10 and 10, which is what are the issues or thoughts about what I'm going to do in 10 minutes, 10 months, and then 10 years. And within those 10 minutes, you might be like, wow, like this is, you know, this is this is it, like, I've got to do it. And then you think about it in 10 months, like, well,

Actually, I don't know. I mean, if I kept that, then, you know, in 10 months, I would have X, Y, Z. And then in 10 years, you really put that in a picture, especially when it comes to retirement. And that's why it's a good example. Like in 10 minutes ago, like, you know, I'd love that 400 ,000. But then in 10 months, like, okay, well, you know, do I really need the 400 ,000? And then what could that what could that 400 ,000 be if I don't take it like that million? What could that million turn into?

And then in 10 years, like, I, it doesn't sound like a good decision, you know? So if your decision that you're going to have within 10 minutes affects your 10 years and 10 months, then you probably shouldn't make the decision. And another thing I talk about, and I don't know the name of it from the book, but there's a scientific thing, but I'm just going to call it force your hand. And so you should force your hand. Like if you have trouble putting money towards retirement,

you force your hand with automatic contributions. If you have issues being disciplined on going out and not driving home, you force your hand by just Ubering there. And once you force your hand, you don't have a choice of what you're doing. Like that is what you're doing. And so. One thing that I have an issue with sometimes is. Me.

Dalton (45:22.734) getting up and I feel like a lot of people have this issue, like especially on the weekends when you don't have much to do. Maybe you always have stuff to do, but sometimes I have stuff on the weekends that I'm just resting from exercise.

and you get up and you know how much to do and your phone is unfortunately still in your bed and you're like, well, let me, let me see if anyone messaged me. And then you're like, well, let me see if, if you got any emails and then, let me see if someone messaged me on Instagram. And then before you know it, you're 40 minutes in and you just wasted all that time. And so for me, I, a hundred percent, and I don't have an issue if I'm, if I'm constantly busy.

but I recognize that if I don't have anything planned in the morning and I don't need to go anywhere, I do not leave my bed. Sorry. I don't leave my phone near my bed. I leave, I put my phone somewhere where I have to get up out of bed and walk over and pick it up somewhere away from my bed. And so I forced myself to get up, get out of bed and then go get my phone. And if I'm doing all those things,

I'm not going to go back into my bed and get on my phone. And so that forces me, okay, I'm going to, I'm already up. Let me, let me, let me get breakfast. Let me, let me go work out or do yoga or whatever I'm doing. But it forces your hand and not do the things that you might have trouble resisting. So my night, Jerry is going on my phone in bed on a weekend, like on a Saturday, I might have a premier league game at nine.

or eight o 'clock and I might get up at six or something and I might go on my phone and just mess around there, read the news, all that stuff, which isn't good. If I'm in my bed, I should be reading a new book for the podcast, not on my phone. So this is something I'm working on. And one thing I didn't touch on in the group is in the item above that not all groups are created equal is recognizing.

Dalton (47:34.126) that not everyone is willing to have these true seeking conversations. So I have a funny story where, and it's a, she's not really a good friend of mine, but she's a long time friend of mine from high school. And we've known each other for maybe nine years now or something. It's been a while.

And she was talking to me, she was giving me the tea, which is like the drama of her life, is what they call it nowadays, the tea. And so she'd give me the tea and she was letting me know what was going on and she was talking to this guy and she was telling me that she really likes him and she thinks that things are gonna move forward. But she had some concerns and...

she was talking about them and she asked for my input and I gave it to her and she wasn't too happy about it. And, and so what I was, what I told her and what she described to me was a situation is like, okay, well it seems like he's only talking to you on the weekends and only hanging out with you on the weekends and doing all this fun girlfriend stuff. But during the week he's just not available at all.

And what I mean by that, it's like, okay, it's not necessarily that he wasn't available to like, he wasn't able to hang out because he was busy or traveling for work, but he wasn't able to like, message her or send her anything nice during the week or any of those things. Like any sort of affection during the week was just non -existent. And she was confused because she was like, okay, well, he's doing all these girlfriend things with me. We're going on like picnics and doing all this fun stuff, going to the park and.

and having a good time and on the weekends, but during the week he's just like, he's not around. And I said, I kind of regretted it when I went afterwards, cause I just feel like I could just hear the sadness in her voice. But I said, it seems like he wants a weekend girlfriend, not a girlfriend. And she was devastated and they wanted updating for a bit later on.

Dalton (49:54.446) for a couple months or something like that. And I think that she was, rightfully so, she was salty what I said. And unfortunately I was right and the relationship didn't work out. And she's like, well, he never had buy in on what we were doing. And it seemed like he just didn't care. And he never cared about me and all this sad stuff. And he's like, yeah, you were right, darling.

And I was like, sorry, I'm so sorry.

And it wasn't like I said, I told you so, because that's definitely not cool. But the whole point of that story is, okay, the person was venting to me, they weren't asking for a truth seeking conversation. And so either when you're talking with your truth seeking friends that you're converse with, or you're talking with your friends that are outside those groups.

you need to confirm what conversation you're having. And I did that today when my friend messaged me and he said, Hey, you know, our girl, my girlfriend broke up with me and XYZ happened and, and, you know, she really hurt me and, and, you know, I'm just really upset about the whole situation. It's numbing and

I don't know where I'm at or what I'm doing and just like a feeling of being lost. And in that moment, we talked for a bit, like 20 minutes, and I let him vent, I heard him out. And then I asked him, hey, are you looking to vent some more or would you like to talk about a different subject?

Dalton (51:54.446) And it's not like I didn't want to talk to him about the breakup and in the situation that he was in and, and, and this, the things that were ongoingly happening, happening to him, it was just, I wanted to make sure that he had the opportunity to either, if he was done venting, that he would be able to switch the topic and talk about something that maybe is more positive and that he enjoys and things that he's doing. He's doing some traveling internationally and maybe he wants to talk about some of the

those things versus this unfortunate turn of events. And no, he's like, no, I just have a little bit more stuff I want to say. And then we could talk about something else. But I really appreciate you asking. And I want to talk about, you know, stuff that I'm doing internationally as well. So let me just, let me just say my piece here and we could talk about this other subject. And so.

I'm saying all these things to confirm, hey, when you're speaking with somebody, you have your normal conversations, you have, you have these truth seeking conversations, and then you have these venting conversations. And a venting conversation, you just got to hear people out and, you know, be there for them. I'm sure you guys are aware, but then there's also these separate conversations where like you just have normal acquaintance conversations, and then you have these truth seeking conversations.

And unless people explicitly sign up for a truth -seeking conversation, you shouldn't necessarily...

go that route. And I think it's a violation of your conversation contract. And it's talked about in the book is like, okay, you need to recognize which group are these people in. And if they're not in the truth scene conversation, you cannot violate this implicit contract. If they haven't explicitly told you, tell me how it is, or I want you to, you know,

Dalton (53:57.966) grade my decision, then you need to recognize that. And the same thing goes to show is, okay, when you're in a truth seeking conversation with your truth seeking group, you still can vent to those people, but let people know and, or have them let you know, hey, this isn't necessarily related on judging my decisions. I'm really upset about the outcome. I just want a couple minutes to vent.

and this is a temporary thing and just give me give me 30 minutes or something and I'm just really distraught about what happened. And so at that point you recognize, hey, this is a temporary state of being that normally we would judge our decisions and we wouldn't be emotional about them. But right now I'm not capable of doing that. So just give me some space or let me vent. And when you take those approaches,

you have a really good atmosphere for learning and you have a optimal feedback loop, which I think is really good for improving, right? And so I provided some examples in kind of illustrating these concepts and some personal stories that were relatable. And if I keep doing these every week, then maybe I just run out of stories. I don't know. Maybe we get some repeat stories in there.

Just to summarize, you want to think in bets versus uncertainties. You want to understand the probability and risk of your decisions. You want to avoid cognitive biases, confirmation bias, anchoring bias. You want to embrace uncertainties and unknowns. All of those things combined, you can separate your decisions and outcomes.

to prevent resulting, which is what it's called in poker.

Dalton (56:04.494) You want to

field skill, you want to have skill -filling outcomes versus luck -filling outcomes. That means you are, have a belief, a bet, an outcome, a skill. And somewhere in between all that on the outside is luck. That either goes with you or without you.

not all groups are created equal except the friends that you have and the groups that they're associated in. If you have a set of groups for gaming or a set of groups for sports, do not force this truth seeking ideology onto them. Ideology is a strong word, but these truth seeking concepts to those groups, they're not necessarily signed up for that. They don't want that. Do not force that on other people.

It's got to be something where everyone's in agreement and that is the.

decoration of the group.

Dalton (57:07.342) Night Jerry versus day Jerry. Think about your decisions. If you're making a rash decision, think about the 10, 10 and 10 rule. 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years. Overall, my personal thoughts about the book, I really liked this book and it was suggested by my mother, Lisa. Appreciate it, mom. She thinks that, and I think so too, I should make some good points that this should be a mandatory read for high school students.

to allow people to think more independently and have less confidence in their thought process, not in a bad way, but rethink how they're doing things and improve and be open -minded and recognize that they have cognitive biases and how do we go about correcting those things and then.

making overall good decisions because if you make good decisions you can have if you consistently make good decisions I'm sure that you can have a good life but if you rely on luck on your outcomes then not so much you get lucky only so many times.

I really enjoyed the book.

I don't have many criticisms. I mean, Thinking in Bets is a classic. My criticism is I wish that they had more stories. I mean, the stories in the book were really the memorable parts. And when you're reading the book and reading about the stories, it's told to you in a way, in a conversational way, where you feel like you were there.

Dalton (58:55.758) you know, it's not descriptive language, but it's more of like a conversation where like, you know, Nick, the Pope was it, you know, Nick, the Greek, Nick, the Greek was at the, at the lounge and he plays, he plays reckless and, and he, he, he's really stuck in his beliefs. And I always try to go there when he's playing because he's a sucker. I like to take his money, stuff like that. And so the, the stories were really good. I really enjoyed this, the poker stories and the other.

historical antidotes that related to the book, especially the CEO firing story that was brought up many times. The worst play in Super Bowl history. There's also the Letterman story, which I didn't bring up, but I talked about it in my own personal occurrence of of kind of truth slamming someone when they they didn't really sign up for that.

Dalton (59:48.622) But I really enjoy the book overall, and I would definitely recommend you read the book. If you have any criticisms or want to talk about your favorite part about the book, leave it in the comments on YouTube. YouTube is the best place for my discovery. Or you could do it on Spotify and I'll be able to respond there. But tell me what your thoughts are about the book. If you've read it, tell me what your favorite part about the podcast was. If you liked that.

if you liked the stories or you felt that they're a little dry, who knows? But let me know. Cause if I don't know, then I don't know. Right. If you feel that you got some value from this episode, leave a like and, and you know, subscribe if you want to know, no pressure. If not, I'll talk to you next week. And I hope that everyone has a great week and a good day. See ya. Bye.