⚠️ This might be the most important thing you’ll read before launching another product, post, or pivot. In the 1930s, a group of New York doctors were asked to examine 389 children. 174 were told they needed surgery. The rest were shown to another set of doctors. 99 of them were also told they needed surgery. Still not done—they took the remaining kids to yet another team of doctors. 52 more were marked for the knife. The kids hadn’t changed. Only the opinions had. What you’re seeing is not medicine. It’s ritual. Authority dressed as precision. A roulette wheel spun by white coats. This is what Taleb calls probabilistic homicide—when doing something feels better than doing nothing, even when it kills. But what if I told you the same thing happens today—just digitally? In your career. Your creative process. Your chase for freedom. Every week, some guru tells you: Niche down! Monetize faster! Post daily! Do longform! Do shortform! No wait, be authentic! No wait, follow the algorithm! Cut, cut, cut. Your content is bleeding. And it’s not new. In 1847, Ignaz Semmelweis observed that more women died giving birth in the hospitals than giving birth in the streets. He shared the data. He begged them to stop. They mocked him. Fired him. He died in an asylum, infected by the same disease he tried to eliminate. Most people don’t want to think. During COVID, I was playing chess with a friend and invited someone to join. They said, “I don’t like thinking.” That’s not a quirky personality trait. That’s a life-threatening mindset. If they bring that into their creative work or business? They’ll be broke in 48 months. We live in a world oversaturated with heuristics that sound wise but fail under pressure: “Mastery = 10,000 hours.” “Don’t date anyone who is broke” “Follow your passion.” These are often peddled without context. And if you don’t push back — if you don’t analyze your unique circumstances — you become a copy of a copy of a copy. You’ll make the same products as everyone else. Sell the same services. Repeat the same tired frameworks. And you’ll become a commodity in a personalized, consumer-to-consumer economy. Commodities don’t get rich. They get replaced. To create anything valuable — from your brand to your beliefs — you must think from first principles. Stop Thinking Like the Herd If you keep doing what everyone else is doing, you’ll get the same results — and ironically, most people’s goal is to be exceptional. There are two key reasons people prefer doing whatever is hot right now: There are two key reasons people prefer doing whatever is hot right now: 1. Most people hate thinking. It’s not because they’re dumb. It’s because they’ve never been rewarded for it. Most people hate thinking. In school, you’re rewarded for memorizing. On social media, for mimicking. In life? For miming someone else’s “success.” Thinking is cognitively expensive. So most people rent their beliefs. 2. They don’t know how to think. They don’t know how to think. They go too deep without going broad — or too broad without understanding the depth. Instead of finding the golden mean. They play stupid games (trend-hopping, chasing clout, mimicking “successful” creators) and win stupid prizes (burnout, obscurity, poverty). This is what happens when you: • Farm airdrops because everyone says to. • Launch a product without real insight into what makes it valuable. • Follow advice just because someone flashy said it worked for them. You become reactive instead of proactive. A follower instead of a founder. Most Rule-of-thumbs will break your thumb. • “Work hard.” On what? Shoveling snow in summer won’t make you rich. • “Just build.” Cool. So did 4000 other indie hackers this week. • “Do what you love.” What if what you love doesn’t help anyone? • “Follow your passion.” Passions can mislead. Explanations correct course. • “Fail fast.” Failure without analysis is just flailing. • "Post everyday" Explanation is what gives heuristics precision. Oversimplified maxims can be useful. But they’ll mislead you if you don’t understand their context. Your context is unique: • Your upbringing. • Your siblings. • The city you live in. • Your cultural background. • The micro-opportunities hidden in your network. There’s no universal recipe for success like “Mix sugar and lemons, boil for two minutes, and add leverage.” You must experiment, study your own conditions, and take no one’s word for it. Nullius in verba. Nullius in verba. Experience Is Not the Best Teacher You don’t become wise just because you got hurt. You become wise when you understand why the pain happened and how to prevent or transcend it. A bridge builder doesn’t fall to their death and then gain insight. They study Newtonian physics — a clear explanation — and avoid disaster. We understand mars and the transmutations happening inside stars that are in a distant galaxy with calculations made here on earth. We don’t understand galaxies by flying into them. We send machines to Mars because we explained orbital mechanics here on Earth. Experience is raw data. Explanation is refined insight. Experience happens to you. It’s passive. It’s limited to your past. It’s a sample size of one. Explanation is active. It scales. It asks, Why did this happen? How does it work? It’s falsifiable and testable. The great human leap came from moving past superstition into structured, criticized, shareable knowledge. That’s explanation. Experience Tests Explanation You do need experience, but only as the lab to test your theory. Think of yourself as a chef. The recipe is your explanation. Cooking is your experience. But a brilliant recipe isn’t proven until it’s eaten. And eating something random doesn’t make you a good cook. That’s the mistake most creators make. They chase painful experiences and call it wisdom. But unless you know what you’re testing — your explanation — you just suffer and call it education. Experience without explanation is pain without progress. You’re Not Paid for Suffering — You’re Paid for Clarity Creators who chase experience make these mistakes: • Only solve problems they’ve lived. • Stay stuck in reactive, anecdotal content. • Confuse scars for wisdom. • Waste hours trying to solve problems a good theory could crack in minutes. You’ve heard this before: “Don’t take advice from someone who doesn’t have what you want.” “Don’t take advice from someone who doesn’t have what you want.” That’s empiricism mixed with status-worship. A divorced man may offer brilliant marriage advice. What matters is whether his explanation holds under criticism. Sure, having the outcome can be a useful signal. But it’s not a substitute for sound reasoning. (See my article on proxies) See my article on proxies If you judge insight based on credentials instead of coherence, you trap yourself. This leads to: People faking results to seem credible.
Smart people silencing themselves because they “haven’t made a million dollars.”
Valuable truths getting buried beneath image. People faking results to seem credible. Smart people silencing themselves because they “haven’t made a million dollars.” Valuable truths getting buried beneath image. Think instead: Does this explanation make sense? Is it hard to vary? Can I test it? Think instead: If more people thought properly for themselves to evaluate what is true, rather than “This guy bought a Lambo from flipping memecoins, I should believe whatever he says and go flip memecoins,” things like these won’t happen. Instead, evaluate knowledge based on truth, not the speaker’s personal biography. Look for ideas that, once you see them, you can’t unsee. These “aha!” moments come from thinking from first principles, from understanding the underlying explanations, not from simply living through a scenario. Life hack: When someone offers advice that lacks context you cannot give them, or tells you something you already know, don’t dismiss them. Appreciate and thank them. Life hack: When someone offers advice that lacks context you cannot give them, or tells you something you already know, don’t dismiss them. Appreciate and thank them. Otherwise, next time, they might assume you already know, or that your context is too weird. It would be a tragedy if the solution to your biggest problem sits just within reach, but you shut it down because of a misguided belief in “credential by experience. Otherwise, next time, they might assume you already know, or that your context is too weird. It would be a tragedy if the solution to your biggest problem sits just within reach, but you shut it down because of a misguided belief in “credential by experience. The Monetizable Mind: Turning Explanation into Income Let’s move from philosophy to profit. If you want to create things that matter and make money, you must: 1. Think independently. Stop defaulting to norms. First principles thinking lets you: • Challenge false beliefs in your niche. • Create new frameworks. • Generate original ideas that no one can compete with. Just like Elon Musk did when he realized the cost of battery cells wasn’t as expensive as experts said— it was a lazy assumption. 2. Start with why. Not in a fluffy way — but in a way that cuts deep. There are millions of courses, coaches, and creators. Most are clones. What makes you magnetic is why you’re doing what you’re doing. Example: Example: Don’t just say: “I sell shoes.” Give insights on what type of shoes optimize first impressions but maintain comfort for programmers. You’re not selling footwear — you’re selling strategic aesthetics. When they do need shoes, they'll buy from you at a premium rather than from someone else, your competitors may sell the same shoes, but not why it matters (perceived likelihood of achievement, see my article on The Value Pyramid). The Value Pyramid When you become an Explanation Architect, you: • Anticipate problems before they arise. • Model and predict solutions with precision. • Create innovations others can’t imagine. • Scale your wisdom beyond your experience. • You stop being a reactor. You become a constructor. Your mind becomes an asset that prints money. Not because you’ve been through more. But because you’ve understood more. Experience tells you what happened. Explanation tells you why. Explanation is how you level up your thinking, your income, and your impact. Want to see how this actually makes you money? I wrote a 3-minute crash course on monetizing your mind. No email. No fuss. Just clarity in one click. one click If you want breakdowns, practical guides, templates, tools and services to implement this and monetise your thoughts, join my free newsletter. join my free newsletter Conclusion: Think for Yourself or Be Outpaced Stop asking, “What worked for them?” Start asking, “What’s the real reason it worked — and will that work for me?” Most people don’t think. They follow scripts. They chase experience. They glorify suffering. They end up broke and confused. But you? You will build frameworks. You will test explanations. You will think from first principles. That’s how you’ll outlearn, outcreate, and outprofit everyone else. P.S. If you want to understand and create thorough explanations, you need to learn from the original thinkers that wrote about the most fundamental knowledge. I have saved you the trouble and compiled a list of over 50 High Quality Books of Fundamental Principles to reshape your Mental Scaffolding. You can grab it here for FREE: https://selar.com/firstprinciples https://selar.com/firstprinciples Cheers, Praise

Every

Creativity Isn’t a Gift—It’s a Bank Account. Here’s How to Make Withdrawals

Experience is NOT the Best Teacher: How to Outthink, Outcreate, and Outprofit Everyone

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

AI Army: How to Outsource Your Business to a Fleet of Digital Robots

10 ways to be a billionaire— by somebody who’s not a billionaire.

11 Habits that changed my life (and will yours too)

12 Habits to Change Your Life

123 Stories To Learn About Life Lessons

3 Heuristics for Decision Making — Naval Ravikant

AI Army: How to Outsource Your Business to a Fleet of Digital Robots

10 ways to be a billionaire— by somebody who’s not a billionaire.

11 Habits that changed my life (and will yours too)

12 Habits to Change Your Life

123 Stories To Learn About Life Lessons

3 Heuristics for Decision Making — Naval Ravikant

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Minty

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps