One of the best ways to be successful is to avoid bad decisions.

There's an infinite number of reasons why we make bad decisions, but here are five of the biggest ones—and ways to ensure you don't fall into these traps again: 1. We’re unintentionally stupid

There are many easily recognizable situations that increase the odds we’re about to do something stupid.

Whether we’re tired, overly focused on a goal, rushing, distracted, operating in a group—or under the influence of a group—we’re more prone to stupidity.

In 2007, Charlie Munger gave a speech at the USC School of Law.

It contained his most crucial ideas for living deliberately.

If you can master these 9 principles, they'll change your life (and help you live a better one): 1. To get what you want, deserve what you want.

No one will just give you trust, success, and admiration. You must earn it.

The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Peter Medawar is best known for his work that made the first organ transplants possible.

In 1979, he published Advice to a Young Scientist, a book with practical advice for anyone “engaged in exploratory activities.”

Here are the key insights: 1. If you want to make progress in any area, you need to be willing to give up your best ideas from time to time.

The key to being a good scientist is the capacity to take no for an answer.

Six short rules for reading better: 1. Quality matters more than quantity

If you read one book a month but fully appreciate and absorb it, you’ll be better off than someone who skims half the library without paying attention.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is one of the best books on human nature and leadership.

Here's a brief, no-fluff summary of the most important and actionable ideas in the book: Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" is one of the most successful books ever published.

It's full of practical ideas and insights you can use in work and life.

Here's a brief, no-fluff summary of the most important and actionable ideas in the book: Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

If you want to start making better decisions, a great place to start is by analyzing what goes wrong during bad decisions.

Here are 5 of the biggest things that cause bad decisions: 1. We're unintentionally stupid

We like to think we’re rational and capable of interpreting all information in a non-biased way, but that’s a dream.

Cognitive biases are great at explaining how our evolutionary programming leads us astray.

In 2007, Charlie Munger gave a speech at the USC Law School.

It contained his most crucial ideas for living deliberately.

If you can master these 9 principles, they'll change your life (and help you live a better one): 1. To get what you want, deserve what you want.

No one will just give you trust, success, and admiration. You must earn it.

Your decisions determine your future.

Every decision moves you closer or further from the things you want. But there is a problem .... there is no class called decision-making. As a result, most people can be taught to make better decisions.

Albert Einstein said, "It's not that I'm so smart; it's just that I stay with problems longer."

It's a good reminder that the most successful people in any field play the long game. The short game is putting off anything that seems hard.

Examples of the short game include:

• Spending more than you earn
• Not taking care of your health or relationships
• Having an opinion on something you don’t know anything about

Productive arguments serve two purposes:

1. To open our minds to truths we couldn’t see
2. Help others do the same

Here’s how to avoid common mistakes and argue like a master: To start, let’s define three common types of bad arguments, or logical fallacies: “straw man,” “hollow man,” and “iron man.”

One important lesson for life: there are no called strikes.

In baseball or softball, a called strike is a strike called by the umpire that the batter didn't swing at. The batter is now punished for deciding not to swing at that pitch.

In life, these don't exist... To explain this idea, let's look at a quote from the brilliant Billy Beane in "Moneyball," who said:

“You can always recover from the player you didn’t sign. You may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price.”

In other words, there are no called strikes.

There are a lot of frameworks to aid your decision-making and thinking processes in life.

But there's one that's most important: The Map is Not the Territory

If you understand this model, you come to realize the flaws in all other models.

Here's why this is important: While useful, the best maps or models are necessarily fallible. So the key to using them is knowing when they're useful...and when they're not.

Maps and models are everywhere around us because they reduce complexity and help us navigate uncertainty.

Relativity is the source of many cognitive biases and mistakes.

But if you understand how to use it, you'll become a better decision-maker and thinker.

Here's how you can use relativity to your advantage in your everyday life: The classic example of relativity comes from grade nine physics. If only they told us at that moment that this would apply to nearly everything in life, we might have paid attention...

If you read just 25 pages a day, you'll be able to read...

• The Power Broker (1,100)
• War and Peace (1,225)
• Anna Karenina (864)
• Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (3,660)

...and more in just one year.

Here are four more tips to make you a better reader: Quit Books

Once you realize that you can quit bad books (or reading anything for that matter) without guilt, everything changes. Putting a bad book down creates the opportunity and space for a great book.

Skim a lot of books. Read a few. Immediately re-read the best ones twice.

There's one thing that's fundamental to invention and innovation.

No...it's not coffee.

It's First Principles Thinking.

If you master this form of thinking, the possibilities for creative potential (and the upward mobility of your success) are unmatched: Think of first principles as individual LEGO pieces.

While they come in different shapes and colors, two things are true:

1. They can’t be reduced further.
2. They can be combined in new and exciting ways to create something unique.

Perhaps an example will illuminate.

Charlie Munger thinks about two things before he makes a decision:

1. The forces at play
2. The psychological factors

Here's how to use those principles to become a better decision-maker: In "A Lesson on Elementary Worldly Wisdom", Charlie Munger explains his two-step system for making effective decisions:

Here are 5 principles to have better interactions with people.

If you master these, you can't help but "win" in life: 1. Contrast matters

Being slightly kinder than average is rewarded while being somewhat less kind than average is punished asymmetrically.

Warren Buffett, talking about the Circle of Competence said, "The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital."

Here’s how the circle of competence works, why it’s important to understand, and three lessons you can use today: A quick test to know where you have knowledge and where you don't is:

• Can you differentiate between what’s knowable and what isn’t in that field?

• Can you separate what matters from what doesn’t?

In 1933, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote his daughter a letter filled with advice for living well.

In it, he told her 16 different things not to worry about. His advice still rings true 90 years later.

If you're worried about any of these things, stop wasting your time: Don’t worry about popular opinion

Umberto Eco was one of the bestselling authors of all time.

In his book "Confessions of a Young Novelist," he shared his unique insights for great writing.

Here are 4 rules to follow for exceptional creative writing: Rule 1: Start with a seminal image

Each of Eco’s novels began with a striking image around which he constructed an elaborate narrative.

For "The Name of the Rose", he began with the image of a monk being poisoned while reading a book.