What I’m thinking about
Reasoning by first principles is an easy concept to grasp on the surface, but to implement in practice is deceptively difficult.
“Reasoning by first principles removes the impurity of assumptions and conventions. This method strips away the opinions and interpretations of other people and gets you to the essential elements that exist. From there, you can build back up to a solution, often with an entirely new approach, based on truths that are unimpeachable and indisputable - because you are not resting on any assumptions anymore”.
Whether in business,
trading and investing, life choices or filtering our daily information overload, it’s increasingly critical to keep reasoning by first principles so you can find your own persona truth, not relying on other peoples.
As King does in the book, take Elon Musk as an example - arguably a modern-day pioneer in first principles thinking - we can go through a simple 3 step process to really see the power of this mental model:
- Identify and define current assumptions - things that appear given or unable to change.
- Break down the problem into its first principles - something that resembles the assumed outcome.
- Create new solution from scratch - this may still give us the assumed outcome or something new entirely.
On the face of it, Musk’s Space X, Tesla and Hyperloop are brand new solutions that are the result of similar process.
My favorite things this week
Quote of the week
Diligence is the mother of good luck
Benjamin Franklin
So that’s it for issue #7 of Sunday Brief. I hope you enjoyed this and it brightened up your inbox ☀️ Thanks again for taking the time to read and I hope you have a great week!
Kieran
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