Look around you. You’ll probably see successful people who appear to have mastered various fields — work, business, money, or life itself.
What are the secrets to their success? Do they have any life lessons that they can impart to us?
As part of my journey to live a good life, I picked up the book Same as Ever — Timeless Lessons On Risk, Opportunity, and Living a Good Life by Morgan Housel. For the uninitiated, Housel is the bestselling author of The Psychology of Money (read my book review here).
The slim volume focuses on unearthing “universal truths” that never change through time. These evergreen principles are elegantly captured by numerous anecdotes that feature anybody who is a who’s who in the world. They include billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former US presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, industrialists like Henry Ford, and many more.
So what are these 23 lessons and how do we apply them to our lives?
#1 Hanging by a Thread
Life is fragile, and events can unfold in unexpected ways, just as World War I began with a single assassination. Housel reminds us that we rarely know where we’re headed, so the best approach is to accept uncertainty and build resilience. Prepare for surprises; don’t rely on perfect foresight.
Life Application Lesson: Embrace unpredictability by strengthening your safety nets — financially, emotionally, and professionally.
#2 Risk is What You Don’t See
The biggest surprises and risks are often the ones we don’t see coming, like the 2008 financial crisis. Despite predictions, it’s the unexpected that changes everything. We tend to overlook the most dangerous surprises.
Life Application Lesson: To manage this, think of risks like how you prepare for an earthquake. Prepare for unseen risks by building contingencies. Ensure your financial and personal decisions account for the unpredictable.
#3 Expectations and Reality
“The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expecations and take life’s results, good and bad, as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism” – Charlie Munger, partner of Berkshire Hathaway.
Happiness often comes from managing expectations. After World War II, Americans thrived because they lived within their means and didn’t chase unrealistic dreams.
Life Application Lesson: Set reasonable goals to avoid disappointment and maintain contentment. Appreciate progress instead of chasing perfection.
#4 Wild Minds
Visionaries like Eliud Kipchoge or Elon Musk achieve greatness because they think differently. Kipchoge, for example, displayed extraordinary focus at the 2021 Olympics, waiting hours for his medal in deep concentration.
These unique minds create brilliance but often behave in ways others find strange. Ditto for Steve Jobs, and Walt Disney.
Life Application Lesson: Admire brilliance but understand that unconventional thinking comes with quirks. Embrace both the genius and the oddities in others.
#5 Wild Numbers
We crave certainty, but the world is driven by probabilities. Dealing with the maths behind risk and uncertainty in general is difficult—something people have struggled with forever and always will.
Our difficulty with dealing with probability and large numbers makes us overly sensitive to run-of-the-mill, inevitable risks.
Life Application Lesson: In decision-making, focus on long-term trends rather than immediate accuracy. Be comfortable with uncertainty, and balance probabilities with gut instinct.
#6 Best Story Wins
Stories resonate more deeply than statistics. Martin Luther King Jr.’s unplanned “I Have a Dream” speech moved millions because it told a powerful, emotional story, far more compelling than facts or data.
When topics are complex, stories are like leverage. Also, the most persuasive stories are about what you want to believe is true, or an extension of what you’ve experienced firsthand.
Life Application Lesson: When communicating complex ideas, use storytelling to make your message relatable and memorable. Tap into emotions to make ideas stick.
#7 Does Not Compute
“The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There is something wrong with the way you are measuring it,” Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
Numbers don’t always tell the full story. This is evident when seen in how the US lost the Vietnam War despite having some of the best brains in defence. The reasons was that they did not consider the feelings of the Vietnamese people. There are four key lessons here:
- We have innovation and advancement because we have people whose minds work different from ours.
- What’s rational to one person can be crazy to another.
- The power of incentives to drive human behaviour, eg the stock bubbles in 2004.
- Stories have more power than statistics.
Life Application Lesson: Recognise that data isn’t everything. Sometimes, gut feeling and human experience can guide you better than numbers alone.
#8 Calm Plants the Seeds of Crazy
Periods of stability breed overconfidence, leading to instability. Carl Jung’s theory of enantiodromia suggests that extremes create their opposites—too much calm leads to eventual chaos.
Look at how stock markets increase with the economy to the point of over-exuberance and then de-stabilisation:
- When economy is stable, people get optimistic
- When people get optimistic, they go into debt
- When they go into debt, the economy becomes unstable
Life Application Lesson: Stay cautious during stable times. Recognise that stability often leads to risk-taking behaviour that can destabilise everything.
#9 Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast
Growth is only good if it’s natural. Robert Wadlow, the world’s tallest man, grew so fast that his body couldn’t handle it. Standing almost nine feet, weighing 500 pounds, he required steel leg braces to stand and a cane to walk. He also died at the age of 22.
Growth is good only if its natural. But forced growth, artificial accelerated growth, may backfire.
Life Application Lesson: Focus on sustainable growth in your personal and professional life. Rushing or forcing growth can backfire.
#10 When the Magic Happens
Stress and crises often spur innovation. After World War II, economic progress surged because the urgency forced people to innovate and act quickly.
Another powerful example is the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. When an oxygen tank exploded, NASA faced a life-or-death crisis. Under immense pressure, the team devised innovative solutions with limited resources, ultimately saving the astronauts. This shows that extraordinary results often emerge from stressful situations.
Life Application Lesson: Embrace stressful periods as opportunities for growth and creativity. Sometimes, breakthroughs come when you’re pushed out of your comfort zone.
#11 Overnight Tragedies and Long-Term Miracles
Bad news can happen in a moment, while good progress takes time. Compounding benefits are gradual, but catastrophic losses can occur instantly, like a sudden financial crash.
Growth always fights against competition that slows its rise. However, everyone gets out of the way during a decline. A lot of good progress and good news concerns things that didn’t happen, whereas virtually all bad news is about what did occur. Thus, its so easy to discount how much progress is achievable.
Life Application Lesson: Be patient with long-term goals, but act swiftly during crises. Understand that progress is slow, while setbacks can be sudden.
#12 Tiny and Magnificent
Small, repeated actions lead to extraordinary results. A 2010 Yale study revealed that one of the leading causes of obesity isn’t huge meals. Rather, it’s in eating more small snacks throughout the day.
It’s the little things that add up over time. Little changes compounded for a long time create extraordinary changes.
Life Application Lesson: Focus on small, positive habits that will compound over time. Whether in health, finance, or learning, little changes can create significant impact.
#13 Elation and Despair
Optimism and pessimism must coexist for success. Save like a pessimist but invest like an optimist—preparing for setbacks but believing in future growth.
An important lesson from history is that the long run is usually pretty good and the short run is usually pretty bad.
Life Application Lesson: Plan for setbacks, but act with long-term optimism. Balance realism with hope to navigate life’s ups and downs.
#14 Casualties of Perfection
Striving for perfection can be harmful. The more perfect you try to become, the more vulnerable you are—just like the Tyrannosaurus rex, which became extinct due to its overspecialisation.
Psychologist Amos Tversky said: “The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
Life Application Lesson: Embrace imperfection. Don’t chase perfection to the point of fragility. Flexibility and adaptability are more valuable than perfection.
#15 It’s Supposed to Be Hard
Everything worthwhile comes with pain. The story of the Donner Party is a tragic example of seeking shortcuts. In 1846, 87 pioneers, en route to California, chose an untested shortcut through the Sierra Nevada. They were trapped by winter snow, leading to starvation and extreme measures. Only 48 survived.
In life, a certain level of inefficiency is not only inevitable, but ideal. A good rule of thumb is to identify the price, and be willing to pay for it.
Life Application Lesson: Accept that pain and difficulty are part of achieving anything meaningful. Don’t look for shortcuts—be willing to pay the price for success.
#16 Keep Running
Competitive advantages don’t last forever. Sears was once the largest retailer in the world, housed in the tallest building in the world, employing one of the largest workforces. However, it is no longer around.
This was because growing income inequality pushed consumes to either bargain or luxury goods, leaving Sears in the shrinking middle. Competition from WalMart and Target that are younger and hungrier retailers took off.
Life Application Lesson: Stay innovative and don’t rest on past successes. Continuously adapt and evolve to maintain your edge.
#17 Wonders of the Future
It’s easy to think that innovation is over, but future technologies will always surprise us. A common view through history is that past innovation was magnificent, but future innovation must be limited because we’ve picked all the low-hanging fruit.
Despite believing the best ideas have already been invented, new breakthroughs are always around the corner. Thus, don’t underestimate these emergent effects.
Life Application Lesson: Don’t underestimate the future. Stay open to new possibilities and emerging technologies that could revolutionise industries.
#18 Harder than It Looks
“The grass is always greener on the side that’s fertilised with bullshit.”
We often assume others have it all figured out, but everyone faces struggles. Most people do not disclose what torments them, what they’re scared of, what they’re insecure about, or whether or not they’re actually happy. Rarely will they give you an honest account of their flaws and failures.
When you are keenly aware of your own struggles but blind to those of others, it’s easy to assume you’re missing some skill or secret that others have.
Life Application Lesson: Don’t compare your struggles to others’ successes. Everyone deals with their own difficulties, even if they don’t show it.
#19 Incentives Are the Most Powerful Force
People follow incentives, not advice. Incentives can drive behaviour in surprising ways, sometimes leading people to act irrationally.
According to Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal, there are three ways to be a professional writer:
- Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.
- Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
- Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
Life Application Lesson: Align your actions with positive incentives, and recognise how incentives shape others’ behaviour. If you want to change outcomes, change the incentives.
“People follow incentives, not advice.” – James Clear
#20 Now You Get It
Experience is the most persuasive teacher. You can read and study and have empathy. But you often have no clue what you’re willing to do, what you want, and how far you’re willing to go until you’ve seen something with your own eyes.
Life Application Lesson: Value learning from direct experience. While theory and advice are useful, personal experience will always provide deeper insights.
“The next generation never learns anything from the previous generation until it’s brought home with a hammer…” – Harry Truman
#21 Time Horizons
“Nothing will ever separate us. We will probably be married another ten years.” Elizabeth Taylor, five days before filing for divorce.
Long-term goals are like standing at the base of Mount Everest, pointing to the top. It’s easy to say you’re committed to the long run, but the real challenge is enduring the climb.
The long run is just a collection of short runs you have to put up with. Your belief in the long run isn’t enough. Your partners, coworkers, spouses, and friends have to sign up for the ride.
Life Application Lesson: The long term is a series of short-term efforts. Stay patient, flexible, and persistent, focusing on progress each day.
#22 Trying Too Hard
Complexity doesn’t always equate to effectiveness. Simplicity often gets overlooked because it feels too easy, but it’s usually more powerful than overcomplicating things.
Beware of the allure of complexity, intellectual stimulation, and discounting things that are simple but very effective, in preference to things that are complex but less effective.
Life Application Lesson: Simplify your approach. Don’t add unnecessary layers of complexity where simple, direct actions can yield better results.
#23 Wounds Heal, Scars Last
What have you experienced that I haven’t that makes you believe what you do? And would I think about the world like you do if I experienced what you have?
Most debates aren’t actual disagreements. Rather, they’re people with different experiences talking over each other.
Our views are shaped by our unique experiences. Disagreements often arise not from conflicting logic, but from differing life perspectives.
Life Application Lesson: Practice empathy in disagreements. Try to understand the life experiences that shaped someone’s beliefs, rather than dismissing their point of view outright.
#24 Summary: Accept Uncertainty
In summary, life is uncertain, and trying to predict the future can lead to frustration. It’s more effective to look back at history and recognise the unchanging patterns that continue to shape the present.
Life Application Lesson: Embrace the unknown and let go of the need for control. Study history to identify timeless lessons and apply them to your life.
“To be nearly sixty and still rebel at uncertainty is ridiculous isn’t it?” Eleanor Roosevelt to her husband Franklin Roosevelt on the night before D-Day invasion.
Conclusion
Same as Ever is an insightful read that challenges us to reconsider how we approach life’s uncertainties. Many of its lessons are universal, offering practical advice that can be applied to work, personal growth, and relationships. Some concepts may feel more abstract, but they encourage us to dig deeper and think beyond the obvious.
Ultimately, these 23 timeless lessons remind us to embrace unpredictability, stay adaptable, and recognise that the key to a good life often lies in how we handle both the expected and the unknown.
What are your thoughts on these 23 timeless lessons? How might they shape your perspective on life?
