From Prime Ministers to CEOs, Everyone Reads His Book
Amazing ideas from Rolf Dobelli, Europe's most notable knowledge manager!

There were countless answers that promised a better future and a happier life.
But no matter how hard I try to follow those answers, my life doesn't seem to change much.
Why? Because we're only looking for one concept, one law.
But now is the time to quietly bring about a change in thinking.
The world is too complex to be understood by one or a few principles.
Unfortunately, it will get more complicated.
The types of challenges I have to face in this complex world continue to increase.


Rolf Dobelli, a leading European knowledge manager, said, “All CEOs in Germany carry this man’s book in their briefcases” (former CEO of Lufthansa Group) and “His ideas become the gold that creates bestsellers” (German daily Die Welt).
“Do you want to live a good life? It’s simple.
Avoid unhappiness and increase happiness! This simple method is difficult because many people don't actually focus on reducing their unhappiness.

As a cool-headed entrepreneur, capable investor, sought-after lecturer, and globe-trotting intellectual, Rolf Dobelli offers a profoundly rational, sensible, and practical approach to the age-old philosophical question: "How can we live a good life?"

How can we live a better life? What role does fate play? What role does money play? Is it better to pursue happiness or avoid unhappiness? Every generation poses these questions anew.
But the answer is basically always disappointing.
Why is that? Because we're looking for just one principle, just one law, just one rule.
But there is no such thing as an absolute, ultimate principle for achieving a good life.
Because the world is too complex to be understood by a single concept or a few principles.
To understand the world, we need a toolbox of diverse ways of thinking, and we need a toolbox that we can use in real life.
Nowadays, in any field, if you are not armed with a solid thinking tool, you are likely to face failure in life.
From 'Prologue'

There is a CEO of a multinational company whom I meet two or three times a year at ceremonial dinner events.
But a few years ago, he started making a rule of not eating dessert, and started refusing dessert no matter what was served.
Until recently, I thought such behavior was illogical and against my desires.
Why would anyone rule out a sweet option on principle? But there's something surprising about this "no-compromise strategy."

-From 'Escaping the Trap of Flexibility'

When I get a request, I think about it for 5 seconds and then decide.
And most of them refuse.
Love from everyone
I think it's better to refuse a request and risk not receiving it than the opposite.
You try that too.
Not many people would dismiss you as unkind for refusing a request.

-From 'Successful People Say 'No''

The thinking habits, mental tricks, and mental tools taught by long-term successful investors are also excellent for our own lives.
The most important thing to do is to avoid the downside.
Before looking at the upside, let's first be mindful of what to avoid, that is, what not to do.
Buffett said this:
“We haven’t learned how to solve difficult problems in business.
What we have learned is to avoid such problems.” Therefore, the good life is not achieved by pursuing great happiness, but by avoiding stupidity, foolishness, and following trends.
It is not doing more of something that enriches life, but 'not doing something, being moderate' that enriches life.

From 'When something wrong comes, something right comes'

A good life is not achieved through self-observation.
Psychologists call this delusion of self-observation the "illusion of self-observation," the idea that one can discover one's tendencies, life goals, meaning in life, and the secret to happiness by looking into one's inner self.
As many poets have likened our emotional world to a deep forest, if we follow our emotions, we will only end up lost in the deep forest and fall into a swamp filled with various feelings, thoughts, and emotional stimuli.

From 'How to Let Negative Emotions Fly Away'

There is a concept called 'scope of ability'.
Anything within your capabilities can be accomplished with excellence.
However, we do not know much about things that are beyond our scope of ability, or we only know part of them.
Know your limits and stay within them.
The size of the range doesn't really matter.
The important thing is to know the boundaries of the scope.
But the push to expand one's capabilities is very tempting.
This temptation is great when you are feeling confident because you are doing pretty well within your current range.
But don't expand the scope.
Competence does not transfer easily from one area to another.
There's no guarantee that a chess player will be a good strategist in business, and there's no guarantee that a skilled heart surgeon will be a good hospital manager.
How could a real estate speculator become a good president?

? From 'Knowing When to Stop Playing'

If only I had bowed down a little before the torturers, I could have avoided the brutal abuse.
I wish I hadn't been tortured like the other prisoners.
Stockdale didn't think about it that way, and he consciously accepted the torture.
Fortunately, we do not have to endure torture, solitary confinement, or eternal ice.
Nevertheless, the accounts of those who have survived such extreme situations are important even to ordinary people like us.
We too face daily attacks on our will, our principles, and our tastes.
The boundaries of dignity are being attacked.

?From 'The world always attacks your taste'

It's liberating to think that you don't have to have an opinion about everything.
A person who has no opinion is not intellectually inferior.
Don't be ashamed of not having an opinion.
Not having an opinion is a freedom and a right we can enjoy.
The real problem today is not information overload, but opinion overload.
Therefore, consciously choose the topics on which you express your opinion.
Why let journalists, bloggers, and Twitterians dictate what you should think about? Avoid situations where you have to judge things.
The world will go on just fine without your comments.
?From 'Not everything needs to be clear'

Wisdom is a practical ability.
It is a measure of how skillfully we navigate life.
Anyone who has realized that it is simpler to avoid difficulties than to solve them will appreciate the simple definition: "Prevention is wisdom."
In fact, life is not easy.
Problems come at you from all over the place.
Chance digs a hole in front of you and barricades your life's path.
This in itself cannot be helped.
But if you anticipate where danger lurks, you can avoid obstacles farther away.
Didn't Einstein say, "Clever people solve problems, wise people avoid them."

?'It is better to avoid the problem in the first place'

Beware, empty formalities are more common than you think.
If you want a good life, expose pretense as pretense and drive it out of your life.
Formalism wastes time and narrows our vision.
Stay away from people or organizations that are involved in cargo cults.
Avoid companies that try to make a dent in the market with empty promises and empty words, rather than substance.
And above all, don't imitate the actions of successful people without knowing what truly makes them successful.
-From 'Wearing a hoodie doesn't make you a Zuckerberg'

---From the text