In late 2009, the global economy was in a state of collapse. Warren Buffett was driving through Omaha, Nebraska, with a friend named Jim. They passed boarded-up businesses and closed stores. Surveying the wreckage of the Great Recession, Jim asked, “It’s so bad right now—how does the economy ever bounce back from this?”
Buffett turned to him. “Jim, do you know what the bestselling candy bar was in 1962?”
“No,” Jim said.
“Snickers,” said Buffett. “And do you know what the bestselling candy bar is today?”
“No.”
“Snickers,” Buffett replied.
Then silence.
The point was simple. While technology, geopolitics, and the economic weather shift constantly, human behavior—and what humans value—remains remarkably stable. If you traveled 500 years into the past or 500 years into the future, the language and medicine would be unrecognizable. But you would see people falling for greed, fear, jealousy, and tribal affiliations in ways that are entirely familiar.
Human behavior is the only thing in history that doesn’t have a shelf life.
To understand the future, we must look at what stays the same. Betting on what stays the same is easier than betting on what might change. It’s also more profitable.
The Bezos Question
Jeff Bezos is constantly asked what is going to change in the next ten years. He argues that the more important question is: “What is not going to change in the next 10 years?”
When you identify constants, you can invest in them with confidence.
“It’s impossible to imagine a future where Amazon customers don’t want low prices and fast shipping,” Bezos said.
This philosophy applies to all areas of life. While it is impossible to predict what the stock market will do next year, we can be highly confident in the human penchant for greed and fear. Focusing on these constants is a more reliable strategy than trying to predict the next big disruption.
Risk is What’s Left Over
We often think of risk as something we can plan for. We are wrong. As Carl Richards says: “Risk is what’s left over after you think you’ve thought of everything.”
Consider Victor Prather. In 1961, the NASA test pilot was testing a new space suit in a high-altitude balloon. The suit worked perfectly at the edge of space. Upon descending and landing in the ocean, Prather opened his helmet’s faceplate to catch some fresh air. When he slipped into the water during the helicopter rescue, the watertight suit flooded through the open faceplate. He drowned.
NASA is the most planning-centric organization in history. They have plans A, B, and C for every contingency. Yet, they were undone by a tiny, unimagined detail.
The biggest risks are the ones we don’t see coming. If we saw them, we would prepare for them, and they would no longer be the biggest risks.
The Happiness Equation: Reality vs. Expectations
The first rule of happiness is low expectations. Happiness is not determined by your objective circumstances. It is determined by the gap between those circumstances and your expectations.
We look back at the 1950s as a “Golden Age.” Yet, by almost every metric, we are better off today.
1955 vs. Today:
• Median Family Income (inflation-adjusted): ~$29,000 in 1955 vs. over $70,000 today.
• Food Budget: 29% of household income in 1950 vs. 13% today.
• Home Size: Today’s average home is one-third larger than in the 1950s, despite having fewer occupants.
Why do we feel less prosperous? Because expectations have risen faster than income. Charlie Munger noted that the world isn’t driven by greed; it’s driven by envy. In the 1950s, your social circle lived like you did. Today, social media forces us to compare our lives to a curated highlight reel of the world’s most successful people. We moved the goalposts into another stadium.
The “Maniac” Premium
We admire role models for their unique minds. We forget those minds are a package deal. You cannot separate a genius’s positive traits from their “crazy” ones.
• John Boyd: The greatest fighter pilot in history who revolutionized military tactics. He was also a maniac who screamed at superiors and chewed his calluses until he could spit dead skin across meeting tables.
• Elon Musk: The mindset required to believe you can colonize Mars is the same mindset that ignores social norms and Twitter etiquette.
• Isaac Newton: The smartest human to ever live. He also devoted years to alchemy and sorcery, searching for a potion for eternal life.
This is the “wholesale swap.” You cannot just take someone’s money or fame. You have to take their entire life—the anxieties, the family struggles, and the maniacal drive that makes them impossible to live with.
The Best Story Always Wins
In a world of infinite data, the best story triumphs over the best idea. Stories are leverage. They squeeze the full potential out of an idea with less effort than dry facts.
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was delivering a scripted speech. Halfway through, Mahalia Jackson shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!” King slid his notes aside and began the unscripted “I Have a Dream” section.
The facts were already known. The story changed history.
Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens, admitted: “I did zero new research.” He took common knowledge and presented it in a superior narrative. The result was 28 million books sold.
Why Stability is Destabilizing
Economist Hyman Minsky’s “Financial Instability Hypothesis” suggests that calm plants the seeds of crazy.
Stability leads to optimism. Optimism leads to debt. Debt leads to instability. When a market feels safe, investors bid up prices and take on more leverage. This act of pursuing safety makes the system fragile. A market that never crashes would eventually become the most dangerous market in history because no one would be prepared for a downturn.
Extreme weather works the same way. In 2017, parts of Lake Tahoe received 65 feet of snow in a few months, ending a six-year drought. That moisture caused a “super bloom” of vegetation. When that vegetation dried, it became the kindling for the worst wildfires in California history. The rain caused the fire.
The Tragedy of Perfection
In evolution and in business, there is a distinct advantage to being a little imperfect.
A taller tree captures more sun but is more vulnerable to wind. A bigger lion kills more prey but is a larger target for hunters. Evolution proves that “good enough” is the sweet spot.
Psychologist Amos Tversky argued that the secret to good research is to be “a little underemployed.” You waste years by not being able to waste hours. Creativity requires the inefficiency of wandering.
We saw the cost of extreme efficiency during COVID-19. “Just-in-Time” manufacturing left companies with zero room for error. The system broke because it was too perfect to handle a mistake.
The Acceleration Trap
Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in history (8’11”), was a catastrophe of scaling. He required braces to stand, had no feeling in his legs, and died at 22 because his heart couldn’t pump blood through his massive frame.
Most things have a natural, convenient speed and size.
• Business: Starbucks grew so fast it “watered down the experience,” leading to 600 store closures and a 73% stock drop.
• Investing: Stocks pay a fortune in the long run but seek “punitive damages” when you demand to be paid sooner.
Growth is a tactic, not a strategy. You cannot make a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.
Stress is the Mother of Invention
The biggest changes don’t happen when we are happy. They happen when we are panicked.
The 1930s were an economic disaster, yet it was the most technologically progressive decade in US history. Because of the Great Depression, the US built the Pennsylvania Turnpike, electrified rural areas, and invented the supermarket.
Militaries solve problems—radar, the internet, penicillin—because the incentive isn’t profit. It’s: “If we don’t figure this out, we die.” Fear is a more potent motivator than any positive feeling.
Silent Miracles vs. Loud Disasters
Good news takes time to compound. Bad news happens in a heartbeat.
Since the 1950s, heart disease deaths have declined by 70%. This is a “silent miracle” that saves a football stadium full of people every month. But because it happens at 1.5% per year, it never makes the front page.
Conversely, 9/11 took one hour to change the world. Lehman Brothers collapsed in 72 hours.
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to destroy one,” says Warren Buffett.
We ignore the silent compounding of progress while being overwhelmed by the instant shock of disasters.
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Predicting specific events is a fool’s errand. But predicting that people will still respond to greed, fear, and tribalism in the same way is a bet worth taking.
The most important life skill is not managing your circumstances, but managing your expectations. The expectation side of the equation is often more in your control than managing your world.
As you navigate a changing world, ask yourself: “What do I desperately want to be true, so much that I think it’s true when it’s clearly not?”
The answer will tell you more about your future than any economic forecast.
