Insanely Interesting People who Influenced Me #18 Daniel Kahneman

I would like to take a moment and thank the people who have had a significant impact on me as an individual. The way they have lived their lives and their body of work has had an outsized impact on how I think about life in general and my work, in particular.

Some of these are contemporary thinkers and some of them are just a memory. Some of them are famous in their own rights and some of them are yet to be found by others. Some of them are young and some of them are old. Some of them are business leaders, some thought leaders, some sportsmen and some coaches. Some of them are artists and some spiritual leaders.

However, if we look deeply, all of them are like you and me, ordinary people who’ve had an extra-ordinary impact on me and potentially a lot of others. And once you get to know them, may be they will have a similar impact on you as well or maybe not, only time will tell.

The reason I am putting together this list and share what I have learnt from them, to thank them publicly for being a teacher and teaching me important lessons in life and in the hope that some of you might be inspired by their company and they can impact you and your life as they have impacted mine.

So, let’s get started.

18. Daniel Kahneman

It is really sad that we lost Daniel Kahneman last week. He and his work have had a significant impact on how I think and on my work. So, though I am a bit late in recognizing and thanking him and his impact, I do think it is my responsibility to do so, in any case.

Irrespective of where we come from and what we do, we are compelled to make hundreds of decision, every single day. Learning how we make these decisions is imperative for us to improve these decisions, if not all of them, at least those that we think are pivotal for our success and happiness.

Daniel Kahneman was one of the early thought leaders who systematically studied the different cognitive biases that we exhibit when it comes to making decisions. His research led to the thriving field of Behavioral Economics.

I did talk about the impact that Dan Ariely has had on me and my thinking earlier in this series. So, when I got my hands on Daniel Kahneman’s seminal work – Thinking Fast and Slow, I was not only thrilled but also super excited to learn from the master himself.

His explanation of System 1 (fast, intuitive, automatic and with little effort) and System 2 (slow, deliberate, logical and with a lot of cognitive effort) thinking made a complicated and a difficult to comprehend subject easier to understand.

In my opinion, his theory confirmed what all of us knew intuitively about how we think and make decisions. It is one of those moments, where we go, “yeah, it makes sense, why didn’t we think about it”! It is extremely difficult to come up with an insight that can do that to people and there lies his genius.

Once we understand how we think and make decisions, we can be more intentional about using system 2 thinking when we want to be deliberate and when to trust our intuition (system 1).

In his last book ‘Noise”, he share insights on how randomness influences human judgement and how to sort through all the inputs we get to avoid the noise and give attention to the important one’s to improve our judgement.

The most significant impact that Daniel Kahneman and his work had on me was my understanding on when I can trust my intuition and when not to trust it but go looking for more information and take my time before I made the decision.

It may sound trivial but the amount of time it saves me and the impact it has on my ability to make a lot more good decisions than average or bad decisions, is non-trivial.

This is my homage to him and the impact his work has had on me and my thinking. Rest in Peace Daniel Kahneman.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #1 Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #2 Paulo Coelho

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #3 Swami Vivekananda.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #4 Seth Godin.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #5 Porus Munshi.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #6 Srinivasa Chakravarthy.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #7 Dan Ariely.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #8 His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #9 Matt Church.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced me: #10 Clayton Christensen.

Insanely Interesting People who Influenced Me: #11 Zig Ziglar.