Inspired by the Farnam Street newsletter, Brain Food – August 10, 2025
Every week, the Brain Food newsletter from Farnam Street drops a “Tiny Thoughts” section — short, sharp ideas that stick with you. This week’s three were especially good:
- Telling yourself you’ll do it tomorrow is how dreams die.
- The problem with success is that it teaches you the wrong lessons. What worked yesterday becomes religion, and religions don’t adapt.
- Good decision-making isn’t about being right all the time. It’s about lowering the cost of being wrong and changing your mind. When mistakes are cheap, you can move fast and adapt. Make mistakes cheap, not rare.
Procrastination kills momentum, success can calcify into dogma, and fear of mistakes can freeze progress. The common cure is movement — doing the thing today, questioning yesterday’s formulas, and lowering the stakes so you can act and adapt quickly. Make action a habit, flexibility a strength, and mistakes a tool for learning.
If you want more like this, you can subscribe to Farnam Street’s excellent Brain Food newsletter.