"Genius is the man who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind." - Napoleon 

“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” - Sherlock Holmes

TLDR: A short and concise piece of literature on the subject of money: how it is handled and how it could be handled.

The book starts easily in a comparative manner with down-to-earth examples. Before proceeding, ask yourself: what has developed your financial habits. What historic events and situations in the world have impacted you while you were developing your understanding of the world? The author, Morgan Housel, starts the book with a very down-to-earth dialogue with the reader, implying on past events and their significance on our development. He contemplates on the different circumstances we all have throughout our life and brings forth examples of success when one would question the term success in the given situations, to yet again understand how different we are in this one world.

Have you read “Thinking in bets” by Annie Duke? Remarkably similar introduction, comparison of luck and risk factors in everyday decision making. If you haven’t then now you have 2 books in the to read list. Additionally, have you heard of Kent Evans, a classmate and best friend of Bill Gates? Google him and just let it sink in, the true weight of luck and risk with which we go by from day to day.

“There is no reason to risk what you have and need for what you don’t have and don’t need.” - Morgan Housel

Good investment does not mean generating highest profits, because highest profits tend to be one time moonshots and hard to repeat. Good investment means generating average or good results on investment and leveraging it through compound interest.

Morgans’ style is simple. In every chapter he refers to a couple examples from well known people. Whether it be a positive or a negative example does not matter, the message is clear and usually straight to the point. The example is followed by a longer discussion on the topic with a few citations here and there.

His examples are so straightforward and simple that sometimes I find myself rereading a section, smiling, thinking to myself: “this is so obvious, how come I have not thought about it previously”. Sometimes a rush of embarrassment goes over me, but then I repeat to myself: “humans are truly irrational and so am I, but I’m improving myself” and continue to read.

"A wise old Owl

Sat on an oak.

The more he saw,

The less he spoke.

The less he spoke,

The more he heard.

Why can’t we be

Like that wise old bird?"

Throughout the book Morgan prefers stable, repetitive actions with average outcome to high risk, high reward ones, because over a long period of time average will compound and generate immense impact. While high returns are thrilling and much more exciting to share with peers, they are extremely difficult to reproduce. And it doesn’t hold strong only with investing, it refers to all sorts of life endeavors.

Additionally to playfulness around statistics and importance of some random events Morgan brings out the worthlessness of history in the prediction of future.

The same way you step on a scale and get from 0 to 100, Morgan went from loving, dad story telling style to mission critical evangelist.