Better Faster Strong By Charles Duhigg

These are just my point form notes. Nothing extensive or detailed in this summary.

Leadership & Influence

Humans are poor at predicting the future due to the need for probabilistic thinking (multiple, often conflicting, possibilities). We also tend to avoid thinking about negative scenarios.
Turn hunches into theories and assign probability ratios.
Focus on what is likely to occur, not what you hope will happen. Use statistics but be aware of their limitations and context. Example: Marriage planning should consider divorce rates.
Calculate odds and consider contextual factors that can influence statistics. Example: Comparing the longevity of modern presidents to pharaohs.
Our brains do make forecasts, and our hunches can be surprisingly accurate.
The best assumptions come from broad life experience, but experiences can also create biases, especially due to media influence.
Balance optimism with acknowledging failure and negative possibilities. Good choices are based on good forecasting, which requires a wide range of experiences (successes and failures).
After a win or loss, analyze why it happened to improve future forecasting and understand which forecasts are accurate and influence your actions.

Creative people connect existing ideas, rather than inventing entirely new ones. This can lead to feelings of guilt (e.g., Disney using proven movie schematics with their own experiences).
Become a "Creative Broker": connect and manipulate existing ideas into something new.
Creators draw inspiration from their own lives, often during emotional states ("creative desperation"). Brokers often operate in an anxious state.
"Spinning" is a creative rut where you become too attached to a vision and lose perspective. Creativity thrives on divergent perspectives.
Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis: A metaphor for a healthy creative process. A moderate amount of disruption (of thoughts, emotions, experiences, and ideas) is beneficial. Too little or too much disturbance hinders growth and diversity. Like waves disturbing a rock: constant disturbance prevents anything from growing, no disturbance allows one species to dominate, and intermediate disturbance allows biodiversity.

Be sensitive to your own experiences and pay attention to your thoughts and feelings.
Recognize that the stress and panic of creation can be beneficial, forcing you to look at old ideas in new ways.
Maintain distance from your creations. View them from new perspectives, especially during times of success when you're prone to becoming close-minded.