Same as Ever

Informationen zum Autor Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund. He is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, winner of the New York Times Sidney Award, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two kids. Klappentext AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of the international blockbuster, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY, a powerful new tool to unlock one of life's most challenging puzzles. Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past. Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change. With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners, not by squinting harder through the uncertain landscape of the future, but by looking backwards, being more broad-sighted, and focusing instead on what is permanently true. By doing so, we may better anticipate the big stuff, and achieve the greatest success, not merely financial comforts, but most importantly, a life well lived. Leseprobe Hanging by a Thread If you know where we've been, you realize we have no idea where we're going. A big lesson from history is realizing how much of the world hangs by a thread. Some of the biggest and most consequential changes in history happened because of a random, unforeseeable, thoughtless encounter or decision that led to magic or mayhem. Author Tim Urban once wrote, "If you went back in time before your birth you'd be terrified to do anything, because you'd know that even the smallest nudges to the present can have major impacts on the future." How hauntingly true. Let me tell you a personal story about how I became interested in this topic. I grew up ski racing in Lake Tahoe. I was on the Squaw Valley Ski Team, and it was the center of my life for a decade. Our ski team consisted of a dozen racers. By the early 2000s we were teenagers, and most of us had spent the majority of our lives together. We skied six days a week, ten months a year, traveling the globe to wherever we could find snow. I wasn't close to most of them-we spent too much time together and fought like cats. But four of us had become inseparable friends. This is the story of two of those friends-Brendan Allan and Bryan Richmond. On February 15, 2001, our team had just returned from a race in Colorado. Our flight home was delayed because Lake Tahoe had been hit with a blizzard extreme even by its own standards. You can't ski race when there's a blanket of new snow-racing requires hard-packed ice. So training was canceled, and Brendan, Bryan, and I prepared for a week of what we called free skiing: unstructured goofing off, skiing around, and having a good time. Earlier that month Tahoe received several feet of light, fluffy snow that comes from bitter-cold air. The storm that hit in mid-February was different. It was warm-barely at the freezing point-and powerful, leaving three feet of heavy, wet snow. We didn't think about it at the time, but the combination of heavy snow on top of fluffy snow creates textbook avalanche conditions. A light base of snow with a heavy layer on top is incredibly fragile and prone to sliding. Ski resorts are pretty good at protecting customers from avalanches by closing off the most dangerous slopes and using explosives to intentionally set off avalanches late at night, before customers arr...

Klappentext

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the author of the international blockbuster, THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MONEY, a powerful new tool to unlock one of life’s most challenging puzzles.

Every investment plan under the sun is, at best, an informed speculation of what may happen in the future, based on a systematic extrapolation from the known past.

Same as Ever reverses the process, inviting us to identify the many things that never, ever change.

With his usual elan, Morgan Housel presents a master class on optimizing risk, seizing opportunity, and living your best life. Through a sequence of engaging stories and pithy examples, he shows how we can use our newfound grasp of the unchanging to see around corners, not by squinting harder through the uncertain landscape of the future, but by looking backwards, being more broad-sighted, and focusing instead on what is permanently true.   

By doing so, we may better anticipate the big stuff, and achieve the greatest success, not merely financial comforts, but most importantly, a life well lived.

Leseprobe
Hanging by a Thread

If you know where we've been, you realize we have no idea where we're going.

A big lesson from history is realizing how much of the world hangs by a thread. Some of the biggest and most consequential changes in history happened because of a random, unforeseeable, thoughtless encounter or decision that led to magic or mayhem.

Author Tim Urban once wrote, "If you went back in time before your birth you'd be terrified to do anything, because you'd know that even the smallest nudges to the present can have major impacts on the future."

How hauntingly true.

Let me tell you a personal story about how I became interested in this topic.

I grew up ski racing in Lake Tahoe. I was on the Squaw Valley Ski Team, and it was the center of my life for a decade.

Our ski team consisted of a dozen racers. By the early 2000s we were teenagers, and most of us had spent the majority of our lives together. We skied six days a week, ten months a year, traveling the globe to wherever we could find snow.

I wasn't close to most of them-we spent too much time together and fought like cats. But four of us had become inseparable friends. This is the story of two of those friends-Brendan Allan and Bryan Richmond.

On February 15, 2001, our team had just returned from a race in Colorado. Our flight home was delayed because Lake Tahoe had been hit with a blizzard extreme even by its own standards.

You can't ski race when there's a blanket of new snow-racing requires hard-packed ice. So training was canceled, and Brendan, Bryan, and I prepared for a week of what we called free skiing: unstructured goofing off, skiing around, and having a good time.

Earlier that month Tahoe received several feet of light, fluffy snow that comes from bitter-cold air. The storm that hit in mid-February was different. It was warm-barely at the freezing point-and powerful, leaving three feet of heavy, wet snow.

We didn't think about it at the time, but the combination of heavy snow on top of fluffy snow creates textbook avalanche conditions. A light base of snow with a heavy layer on top is incredibly fragile and prone to sliding.

Ski resorts are pretty good at protecting customers from avalanches by closing off the most dangerous slopes and using explosives to intentionally set off avalanches late at night, before customers arrive in the morning.

But if you're skiing out of bounds-ducking under the do not cross ropes to ski the forbidden, untouched terrain-that system won't help you.

On the morning of February 21, 2001, Brendan, Bryan, and I met in the Squaw Valley Ski Team locker room, like we had hundreds of times before. Bryan's last words when he left his house that morning were, "Don't worry, Mom, I won't ski out of bounds."

But as soon as we clicked into our skis, that's what we did.

The backside of Squaw Valley (now called Palisades Tahoe), behind the KT-22 chairlift, is a stretch of mountain about a mile long that se…