Simpson’s Paradox can make sports stats look weird

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Let’s look at two NBA legends, Larry Bird and Reggie Miller.

  • When it came to two-point shots, Larry shot 50.9% and Reggie shot 51.6%, so Reggie was better there.
  • When it came to three-point shots, Larry shot 37.6% and Reggie shot 39.5%, so Reggie was better there as well.

However, when you add them together Larry was the better overall shooter (49.6% to 47.1%)! How is that possible?

Simply put, Larry shot many more two-point shots than three-pointers, at least compared to Reggie, so his total average was closer to the (higher) two-point number.

It’s weird, I know.

This old video from “singingbanana” helps explain it using a medical example:

As James says in the video, it’s a case that shows how important it can be to pay attention. Initial logic says that Reggie was a better overall shooter or that “Drug B” was more effective, but the math just doesn’t play out that way.

This can apply to medical data or website stats or a variety of other things you might come across. People will often try to show numbers in a way that supports a particular agenda, so knowing about little oddities like this can help you to always be able to sniff out the truth.

Write notes with propositional titles

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As I’m digging further into the Obsidian tool, I’ve also been taking a closer look at how I assemble my notes. I came across a fantastic article from Nick Seitz that dug into a lot of the first steps one might take with Obsidian, and it included the push to use “propositional titles”.

In short, he’s advising that you title your notes as a claim for what is expressed in the note, rather than vague thoughts about it. He offers three examples:

  • “Relationship between art and truth” becomes “Art is a means of disclosing reliable, true knowledge.”
  • “Literacy of Puritans in late 18th century America” becomes “American Puritans of the late 18th century were highly literate.”
  • “Learning through linking” becomes “Linking ideas together helps us remember ideas and use them.”

The reasoning behind this is essentially two-fold.

First, it makes it easier to see connections between two notes. If it’s super clear what the content of the note really is, you may be more apt to recognize that when trying to find more material. Rather than seeing a suggestive title, you’ll see a specific claim and you can quickly process the meaning of it.

Second, it will help you focus your writing. If you title it with a clear claim, you know exactly where your thoughts on that subject should begin and end.

Andy Matuschak offers another option and says that leaving note titles as questions can work too “because that position creates pressure to make the question get to the core of the matter“.

In any case, this is something I’m continuing to work on. While I do a pretty good job of tying notes together as needed, the titles are often an afterthought. As I work to tighten them up in the future, it should serve me well.

Notes from “The Four Tendencies”

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I recently went through the book “The Four Tendencies” by Gretchen Rubin and found it to be a fascinating look at an aspect of human behavior. I encourage you to give it a read.

Below you will find my notes (gathered in Obsidian) to give you an overview.

If you’re familiar with it, what type are you? I personally fit clearly in the “questioner” box.

The Four Tendencies

The indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better (and other people’s lives better, too)

Initial Notes:

The four types: Upholder, Obliger, Rebel, Questioner

Summary:
The key to happiness is to understand your own strengths and weaknesses, collectively known as your Tendency. Once you can recognize these aspects of yourself, you can start to adjust to and compensate for them. No one is perfect, and we can make life much easier on ourselves by avoiding pitfalls and playing to our strengths.

Upholder

  • Meets outer expectations, meets inner expectations.
  • Overall:
    • They want you to tell them what needs to be done; they value self-reliance and performance.
    • Reliable people who take care of themselves, but they do face challenges.
    • They should receive clear instructions, and their frustrations are best met with understanding.
  • Good:
    • Reliable for others and themselves.
    • Doctors and managers love them.
  • Bad:
    • Can blindly follow rules, or get overly controlled by a new habit.
    • Have trouble delegating duties.
  • Their Question: “Should I do this?”
  • Influence them: They want to know what should be done.
  • Values: Self-command and performance.
  • Fictional People:
    • Amy Santiago from Brooklyn 99
    • Leslie Knope from Parks & Rec
    • Hermione from Harry Potter
    • Dwight Schrute from The Office
    • Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons
    • Monica Geller from Friends
  • Other quotes from book:
    • “In fact, the Upholder commitment to meeting expectations can sometimes make Upholders seem…cold. There’s a relentless quality to Upholders. They’re going to do what must be done even, sometimes, if that means inconveniencing other people or being out of step.”

Obliger

  • Meets outer expectations, resists inner expectations.
  • Overall:
    • They want you to hold them accountable for what needs to be done; they value teamwork and duty.
    • Struggle to meet their own expectations, but this can be solved by manufacturing outside accountability.
    • May be the toughest category to be in, so they may get the most out of understanding the Four Tendancies.
  • Good:
    • Quite effective at meeting the demands of others; they are the dependable rocks of society.
  • Bad:
    • Will struggle to exercise, take an online course or doing much of anything that requires self-motivation.
  • Their Question: “Does this matter to anyone else?”
  • Influence them: They need accountability.
  • Values: Teamwork and duty.
  • Fictional People:
    • Andy Dwyer from Parks & Rec
    • Harry Potter
    • Pam Halpert from The Office
    • Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games
    • Chandler Bing from Friends
  • Other quotes from book:
    • “Remind the Obliger that saying no allows him or her to say yes to work that’s more important”

Rebel

  • Resists outer expectations, resists inner expectations.
  • Overall:
    • They want you to let them decide what needs to be done; they value freedom and individuality.
    • They resist meeting any expectations or being bossed around.
    • They can frustrate themselves, but there are ways they can meet their own expectations.
  • Good:
    • They’re willing to work hard, if things are framed in a way that makes them feel like they are the ones making the decision.
  • Bad:
    • Anything that sounds like an expectation gets rejected.
  • Their Question: “Is this the person I want to be?”
  • Influence them: They want freedom to do something their own way.
  • Values: Freedom and self-identity.
  • Fictional People:
    • April Ludgate from Parks & Rec
    • Sirius Black from Harry Potter
    • Creed Bratton from The Office
    • Bart Simpson from The Simpsons
  • Other quotes from book:
    • “One parent of a Rebel explained, “The best way to wrangle the Rebel child is to give the kid the information to make a decision, present the issue as a question that he alone can answer, and let him make a decision and act without telling you. Let him make a decision without an audience. Audiences = expectations. If he thinks you’re not watching, he won’t need to rebel against your expectations.”
    • “As one Questioner pointed out, ‘The Rebels’ best asset is their voice of dissent. We shouldn’t try to school it out of them, or to corporate-culture it out, or shame it out. It’s there to protect us all.”
    • “Rebels can do anything they want to do”
    • “The harder the push, the greater the Rebel push-back. I laughed when a Rebel friend told me, ‘No one can tell me to do anything. I recently got an email saying “Please read” in the subject line, and I immediately deleted it.”
    • “Rebels often seek out careers that give them the flexibility to choose their work, set their own schedules, and avoid having to answer to other people.”
    • “For Rebels, the ability to choose is so important that sometimes they make a choice—even when it’s against their own self-interest or it’s not what they prefer—just to reassure themselves that they can make that choice.”

Questioner

  • Resists outer expectations, meets inner expectations.
  • Overall:
    • They want you to justify what needs to be done; they value justification and purpose.
    • Resistant to meeting the needs of others, and their nature can be both a benefit and a hinderance.
    • They need clear justification, they don’t like being questioned and should avoid certain complicated jobs.
  • Good:
    • Great at spotting the ways in which a procedure can be improved.
  • Bad:
    • Feel a strong desire to question everything.
    • Can face analysis paralasis when making decisions.
    • If you want your Questioner partner to buy bread on the way home, don’t just send a text that says, “Pls pick up bread, thx!” While it might take some extra effort on your part, you’ll be preventing a lot of hassle by being exact and asking him to pick up crusty sourdough bread because your mom is coming over tonight and it’s her favorite, and also because it will go perfectly with the soup you’re making. With this justification, you’ll be sure to avoid any follow-up questions.
  • Their Question: “Does this make sense?”
  • Influence them: They want justification.
  • Values: Justification and purpose.
  • Fictional People:
    • Ron Swanson from Parks & Rec
    • Fred and George Wesley from Harry Potter
    • Jane Eyre
  • Other quotes from book:
    • “Questioners … can add tremendous value to relationships and organizations by ensuring that they-and the people around them- don’t unthinkingly accept expectations that aren’t well justified”
    • “Questioners are often puzzled by others’ willingness to act without sound reasons.”
    • “when encouraging Questioners to take action, it can be useful to remind them, “Just try it. It’s an experiment.”

Other notes

“Whatever tendency you may be, knowing more about yourself can help you succeed in work and life.”

“The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.”

“One of my Secrets of Adulthood is that we’re more like other people than we suppose and less like other people than we suppose.”

I encourage you to read the full book to learn more, and leave your type in the comments below!

Conviction doesn’t require a closed mind

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Being convicted in your beliefs is a powerful thing. If you put in the work and really know what you believe in, that can add solid direction to your life.

For me, I’ve very convicted in some areas and more curious in others, but most everything should have a bit of both of those. Just because you’re convicted doesn’t mean you should stop being curious. As Gary Vaynerchuk said in “Twelve and a Half“:

“As you’ll find, you can be humble and curious but also have conviction in your beliefs. It’s not either-or.”

When it comes down to it, the people with the strongest convictions tend to be the most curious about them.

When I say “strongest conviction”, I don’t mean “a conviction they feel strongly about”. People can feel strongly about some very unwise things. In this case, the strength comes from the ability to defend what they believe because they’ve viewed it many times from the opposite side.

People with truly strong convictions can:

If you claim “I believe x, and I won’t talk to anyone that disagrees”, your belief might feel strong but it lives on a very shaky foundation. Be curious about why you might be wrong; there’s a chance you’ll actually be forced to change your mind, but more likely you’ll gain even more insight into what your conviction is the right one.

Kindness is about the recipient

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For years, I thought that a key to being a good leader was to treat your staff with kindness. That’s not wrong, but research into various personality profiles (such as enneagram and DISC) have shown me that “kind” is different depending on who you’re talking to.

An old business coach of ours laid it out clearly. In his world, he knew that he should spend 10 minutes with Stacey every morning just catching up with life and discussing “stuff”, as she enjoyed that kind of interaction. However, with Rachel he needed to be in and out in 30 seconds, as she found empty small talk to largely be a waste of time. In his example, treating both of them with kindness meant very different approaches.

In his book “Twelve and a Half“, Gary Vaynerchuk simply says this:

“Kindness is based on the recipient’s terms. Not yours.”

That’s it. If you truly want to show kindness to someone, it’s their interpretation of “kind” that matters, not yours.

For some people, that means spending more time with them. For others, it’s about the quality of the time instead of the quantity.

If you’re wanting to help someone in need, sometimes money is the best thing you can offer. In other cases it might be giving up a day to help them move.

Situations are different. If you really want to show kindness, find out what really matters to the recipient.

The secret to Google search: Reddit

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I’ve been doing something on Google quite a lot lately, and I’ve come to find out it’s part of a larger trend. When I search for something, say “best electric lawnmower”, I’ll stick the word “reddit” at the end of it and search for “best electric lawnmower reddit” instead. The results are tremendously better.

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You may not really understand or care what Reddit is, but it’s essentially a massive forum full of people talking about things; almost literally everything. By adding it to your search, rather than getting search results from the best SEO-focused sites, you get discussions from real people. In many cases, that’s exactly what you wanted in the first place.

A post from DKB earlier this year summed it up very well:

The SEO marketers gaming their way to the top of every Google search result might as well be robots. Everything is commercialized. Someone’s always trying to sell you something. Whether they’re a bot or human, they are decidedly fake.

So how can we regain authenticity? What if you want to know what a genuine real life human being thinks about the latest Lenovo laptop?

You append “reddit” to your query (or hacker news, or stack overflow, or some other community you trust).

This isn’t the best move for many things, but a lot of times it’s a huge help when searching.

I hope Google is able to improve results for all queries as time goes on, but for now, for many searches, just stick “reddit” in there and you’ll likely find the commentary that you’re looking for.

Cool Heads Can Beat Courage

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I shared a few weeks ago that being calm can be contagious. If there is a hectic situation, your ability to keep calm will be seen and felt by others, and will hopefully inspire them to do the same.

Related is the idea that keeping a cool head is generally more advantageous than simply showing courage. A few quotes from “The Obstacle is the Way” help to support this idea.

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First, from Teddy Roosevelt:

“What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice.”

Second, from what Voltaire suggested as the secret to the great success of the first Duke of Marlborough, that…

 “tranquil courage in the midst of tumult and serenity of soul in danger, which the English call a cool head.”

Being courageous is a wonderful trait to have. Being able to steel up to face an obstacle is something to be admired.

Without a cool head, though, simply being courageous is a great way to find yourself dead. Better is to pair your courage with coolness, so you can properly assess the situation before you dive in.

Being kind doesn’t mean you’re a pushover

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We could all stand to see a bit more kindness in the world but I think it’s often seen as the opposite of “toughness”, even though the two can go hand-in-hand.

You can be strong and relentless in all you do, while still being kind while you do it. If you think you need to be a jerk to get ahead, you’re mistaken.

In his recent book “Twelve and a Half“, Gary Vaynerchuk puts it this way:

People confuse the definition of kindness with the definition of pushover—“a person who is easy to overcome or influence.” They’re not the same at all.

Be strong.

Be courageous.

But be kind.

Is your decision a one-way door or a two-way door?

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We face a lot of decisions in life, and putting a framework around them can be helpful. Some decisions need to be carefully thought through, where other decisions only require a moment’s thought. It’s like Chidi’s constant indecision in the show “The Good Place”:

An episode of “The Long and The Short Of It” podcast tackled this, and Jen Waldman gave an excellent viewpoint to consider: is the decision a “one-way door”, where you really can’t turn back, or is this a “two-way door” that can be undone or redone later? Here are her words:

That a two-way door decision, meaning you can go through the door and you can also go out of the door, you’re not stuck in the room…go fast. Go in, look around, and either stay or go out. With a one-way door decision, take a breath, take a pause, do the research, slow down, and walk in. Because once you walk in, you’re there.

Some decisions require more of your thought, and framing them in the one-way vs two-way door can be a helpful exercise.

At the end of the day, you could make the right decision and still face a poor outcome, but that’s how things go sometimes. Just base your level of effort on decision-making based on how much it will impact you, and then do the best you can.

Moving from Roam Research to Obsidian

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been moving my primary notes database from Roam Research to Obsidian. It’s a move I’ve long known I was going to make, but I’ve been waiting for Obsidian to add a few more features to help me get there. They added them, and now I’ve moved.

It’s similar to when I was using an iPhone back in 2008-2010. I knew I’d switch to Android at some point, as I preferred the direction they were heading, but iPhone was the better choice for a while. Eventually Android filled in the gaps, and here we are.

Roam Research?

If you’re not familiar with Roam, this article I wrote from a few years ago is a good primer. To go a bit further, I’ve created quite a few videos that go deeper. Long story short, both Roam and Obsidian are note-taking tools, not wholly unlike Evernote and others.

At the end of the day, Roam and Obsidian are very similar, but I feel the the future is more bright with Obsidian and I’m glad I made the move.

Sync

The big difference between Roam and Obsidian is that Roam is web-based while Obsidian lives on your computer. I generally prefer web-based tools, but Obsidian has been developing a “sync” tool to keep your content synced between devices, and at this point that tool is finally fantastic. I’ve been using it to connect two Windows desktops, a Windows laptop, a Chromebook (with the Android app), my Android phone, and an iPad, and it’s been flawless keeping it all in sync.

While I plan to produce a bunch of videos about Obsidian in the coming weeks to dig in deeper, here are some initial thoughts on why I moved.

Pros

Privacy
Everything in Obsidian is stored locally, and if you choose to sync it (like I do) it’s all encrypted for protection. Roam does a good job with privacy, but by nature it’s not as secure.

Pricing
Roam is $15/mo, while Obsidian is free. However, the sync feature is $8/mo, so that chews into the gap a bit, but it’s still half the price.

Mobile
This is an area where you’d think Roam should win, being a cloud-based product, but the Obsidian mobile app is far better (particularly if you use Sync to keep it updated with your computer data).

Extensions
Roam has a few third-party browser extensions to help expand it, but they’re not officially supported. On the other hand, Obsidian has a library of nearly 1,000 extensions you can load to help it better fit what you need from a tool like this.

Aliases
This was always a minor annoyance in Roam; if I had a page called “Atlanta Braves” and a page called “Braves”, there was no way to tell the system to treat them as if they were a single page. Obsidian lets you do that.

Date formatting
I use these tools extensively for daily notes, and the date format in Roam was very specific, like “January 1st, 2023”. You had to be super careful with the “st” and such, or you’d end up linking elsewhere. Obsidian uses the more boring (but much more efficient) style of “2023-01-01”, and you can change that up if you want.

Cons

I think Obsidian is a better product now, but that’s not to say it’s perfect. Here are a few areas where it’s been a bit of a struggle.

Not web-based
I’ve covered this above, but I’d still prefer it to be a web-based tool merely for convenience.

Folders
In Roam, your notes are all free-floating in their system. With Obsidian, every note is literally a file on your computer and must be sorted out (or you can leave them all just cluttering things up). I’ve grown to like this, but it’s taken some getting used to.

Extensions Required
I mentioned above that I love Obsidian’s extensions, and I do, but they fill some gaps that Roam had natively. This isn’t a big con, as it allows the tool to be more lightweight yet extensible, but it’s been interesting tracking down the right extensions to make it work for me.

Migration is a pain
There are some tools to help move your notes over, depending on where you’re coming from, but it’s still a huge pain. I had nearly 7,500 notes, and I had to touch almost every one of them to get them sorted into the right place. However, this is also why I decided to move now; if I was going to move eventually, the longer I waited the more notes there’d be to move.

Tag filtering is weak
Roam has fantastic filtering of tags. For example, I can click “#books”, and then “#leadership” and then “#donereading” to quickly filter them down. Obsidian can do that, but it’s much more cumbersome. I expect this to improve over time.

Final thoughts

Overall, these tools are very similar. If you use Roam and you’re happy with it, there is no need to move. However, if you don’t have a solid note-taking system or you’re using something completely different, it might be worth checking out these options to see if they’d make things easier for you.