Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money and former columnist at The Motley Fool and The Wall Street Journal, published an article in 2022 entitled Rare Skills. In it, she outlined three “rare and powerful skills” — these skills are useful for living a happy and well-balanced life. The Tonic newsletter annotated them as follows:
- Understanding how people justify their beliefs in a way that makes you respect their delusions. — “A rare and useful skill is understanding that people you find to be deluded likely suffer from the same shortcomings you do… You don’t have to agree with others’ delusions or put up with their collateral damage. Just accepting that everyone wants easy and comforting answers in a complex and painful world is a rare skill.”
- Quitting while you’re ahead, or at least before you’ve had too much. — “The temptation to exploit every drop of opportunity leads many people to push relentlessly for more, more, more. They only discover the limits of what’s possible when they’ve gone too far, when the momentum of decline is often unstoppable… there’s value in saying, ‘I could have more and do more, but this is good enough’... But it’s such a rare skill. People don’t like leaving opportunities on the table, and it’s counterintuitive to realise that you’ll likely end up with more than those whose appetite for more is insatiable.”
- Getting to the point. — “Perhaps the most critical communication skill. Be brief. Use as few words as possible to say what you need, and everyone will appreciate it… Poor communicators ramble. Good communicators leave out unnecessary details. Great communicators treat words as the scarcest commodity.”
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