How to Win in 2026: The Best Thinking from The Knowledge Project (2025)

First-order issues in business are the root-cause problems that, when solved, resolve downstream complications—and identifying them requires popping up a level to see the whole landscape rather than going down a task list sequentially.

“if I get this problem it I have a problem on my hands. If I get to the first order issue and get to the root cause of that, usually that helps solve that problem. And there are other issues that are not first order.”

Distribution center workflow problems at Zappos were not due to broken picking, ordering, or packing processes individually, but due to excessive handoffs and discrete batching across all processes; solving it required flow optimization across the entire center rather than optimizing individual steps.

“the distribution at was not flowing well. Um, and we couldn't figure out which process was broken. Was it the picking process? Was the was the ordering process broken? What was broken about it? And we went and just look through the flow and the flow was broken... there was too many handoffs, uh, across all of these different discrete processes... when you look at that from a flow perspective, you start thinking about new solutions that allow there to be much better flow throughout the distribution center”

In rapidly changing markets like AI, strategic decision-making based on current facts rather than first-principles analysis of underlying dynamics will fail almost certainly, because near-term facts will not be predictive of 12-month outcomes when markets are in transition.

“if you're responding to the facts in front of you and not thinking from first principles about why we're at this point and where it will probably be 12 months from now, the likelihood that you will make the right strategic decision is almost zero.”

Getting really comfortable with being uncomfortable is magic, and it's not something you need to be born with—it can be learned and developed through practice and resilience building.

“getting really really comfortable with being uncomfortable is magic. It's totally magic. And I wasn't always good at that. I don't think you need to be born with that. I think you can learn that. I think you you can learn resilience”

Attachment theory identifies three primary attachment styles: anxious (fear of abandonment, chasing behavior), avoidant (fear of engulfment, withdrawal behavior), and secure (healthy balance of independence and intimacy); anxious-avoidant pairs reinforce unhealthy patterns, while secure partners can break these cycles.

“there are people who are anxiously attached... their story of love is that I'm going to chase you... Then there's people who are avoidant attached... they sort of have the opposite experience. Their version of love is I'm going to be smothered... Then there's a third type of securely attached people. And these are people who have a healthy relationship with independence and with intimacy.”

The affect heuristic is a mental shortcut where if you like something and feel comfortable with it, you assume it is real, the person is competent, or the claim is trustworthy; liking is central to all these judgments and is therefore underrated in influence.

“if we like something and feel comfortable with something, it's more likely to be real. Someone we like is more likely to be competent. Someone we like is more likely to be smart. All these things just kind of go together. And so liking is at the center of that.”

You don't want yes people around you; you want people who say 'Why don't we push the boundaries of our thinking?' and people who challenge your thinking with brilliant ideas that take you to a better place, not just ideas that reinforce what you already believe.

“don't forget the toughness. Cuz you don't want yes people around you. You want people who say, 'Why don't we push the boundaries of our thinking?'”

Success in pursuing dreams requires willingness to take rejection risk directly—approaching people in person, applying for jobs, starting businesses—not passive waiting; this applies equally to job seeking and romantic pursuit.

“if you want your dream job, you need to go out there, get a lot of nos, and go after it. You don't just sit at home waiting for a LinkedIn recruiter to message you about your dream job. That that doesn't happen. You have to make it happen. And the same thing is true with dating is that you have to shoot your shot.”

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable and appearing foolish is essential to success; most successful people are willing to look stupid for extended periods during early ventures, while unsuccessful people avoid discomfort and therefore never break through.

“I don't know anyone that I admire who's had success who has not gone through that period of making kind of look looking kind of dumb.”

Paul Asante (squash coach) won 13+ consecutive national championships and 160+ consecutive matches; his message to NFL team was that past success is irrelevant to current performance—every day is a new opportunity to improve, independent of historical wins.

“Paul Asante. They won like 14 national championships in a row... at the Patriots, we were favored in almost every game... I brought coach Asante in... He talked about it. It doesn't matter whether you are or aren't or how many you have or haven't won. Every day is an opportunity. You make the most out of each day and you just get better each day. and you don't worry about what you've done in the past.”

Brian Urlacher (Hall of Fame linebacker) distinguished himself from other elite NFL players by not getting tentative after making a mistake, while most NFL players become hesitant after errors; this relentlessness and lack of fear is the differentiator at elite levels.

“Most NFL players, they make a mistake and they get tentative... I make a mistake and I don't get tentative. And so that's that's that courage. That's that willingness to fail. That's that relentlessness”

When you make a mistake in performance (e.g., a talk at work goes poorly), the mistake stays in your head and makes you more tentative in future similar situations, which reduces success probability; the antidote is more preparation plus mental release so you don't carry the mistake forward.

“if you give a talk at work and you know, it doesn't go quite right. It's in your head the next time you do it. So you're less likely to be successful in a way.”

There is no failure, only feedback; reframing failure as information rather than verdict removes emotional charge and enables learning—this is a foundational presupposition that enables sustained performance improvement.

“there's one of the principles the presupposition is there's no failure only feedback.”

At Zappos, the website speed problem wasn't caused by too many pictures or long search results as assumed; the root cause was insufficient caching and technology infrastructure, and solving it required rethinking the tech stack rather than reducing content.

“Is the first order issue that's we have too many pictures? Well, we want the pictures. We have lots of photos. We want to show those photos. Is the first order issue that we need to um trim the number of search results? Well, customers want longer search results. It's like, no, it's none of that. we need to figure out how to make the website go faster. And so we start caching the the search results. We start caching things.”

In dating, momentum matching is critical: both partners must take steps forward at similar pace; if one person takes many steps forward without reciprocal steps from the other, the other person feels overwhelmed and may withdraw.

“a lot of dating that people miss is that it's about matching somebody's momentum and matching somebody's speed. So, it's a dance where I take a step forward and then you need to take a step forward. If I take 10 steps forward, you might feel overwhelmed and take a step back.”

Effective argument strategies involve starting with points of agreement, even trivial ones, to establish that disagreement is not fundamental; this breaks down the assumption that disagreement is total and makes productive conversation possible.

“the better way to argue... he'll have somebody who totally disagree with with him on a bunch of things. And he'll always make sure to start with agreeing with them on something, even if it's trivial. I agree with you that that thing was totally insane. And now we can have a productive conversation because we've established that it's even possible for you and me to see things the same way as opposed to your knee-jerk assumption that it wouldn't be possible.”

Ben Francis built Gym Shark after multiple failed previous companies; publicly displaying early failure (a screen print of his original, failed creation) demonstrates that successful entrepreneurs typically have a failure track record, not sudden success.

“what most people don't know is that that was not Ben Francis's first company. that Ben Francis actually had a bunch of failed companies before he landed on Gym Shark.”

When evaluating whether to attempt a venture, the critical analysis is whether the cost of failure is acceptable relative to the upside of success; low-cost-of-failure ventures (e.g., $39/month Shopify store) should be attempted because the asymmetry favors trying.

“you have to basically figure out with any anything you're doing, what is the cost of failure here? If the cost of failure is really high, you really have to think about it... for $39 a month, you can build a store. If it works, blow it up. If it doesn't work, try something else.”

The pain of regret from not preparing and not leaving everything on the field lasts forever, while the pain of losing after full preparation is sharp but passes quickly; therefore, regret pain far exceeds preparation pain.

“the pain of losing is sharp but it's over fairly quickly. But the pain of regret not putting in the work not doing the things you didn't leave it all in the field that lasts forever.”

Kobe Bryant evolved his game over his career as physical decline prevented him from using his early-career approach (pure athleticism); he adapted by developing new scoring methods (movement without ball, jump shots, pick-and-roll efficiency) and this capacity to evolve while maintaining elite performance is a critical success principle.

“Kobe talked a lot about evolving, you know, and he said, um, you know, look, when I was 22, 23, you know, I could just get the ball and drive by anybody and and score. And he said, I can't do that anymore. I still score, but I found different ways to score, moving without the ball, jump shots, and, you know, being better in pick situations”

Leaders often fail to deliver clear feedback because they avoid conflict and 'beat around the bush,' resulting in employees leaving performance reviews believing they're doing well when they actually need to improve on multiple dimensions; this miscommunication occurs because people don't like conflict.

“People actually come out of performance of praise and say, 'I think I'm doing a good job.' and you're going, 'Oh my god, I hope that's not what you heard.'... People don't like conflict. People don't like to deal with issues directly. They like to beat around the bush and then leave saying, 'I think I gave the person the message.'”

Effective performance appraisals should structure feedback in four parts: (1) celebrate what they did well, (2) identify where they underperformed, (3) specify 3-4 improvement areas with concrete examples and monitoring plan, and (4) clarify the trajectory/promotion opportunity if they show progress—this combines toughness, kindness, and clarity.

“I chose to write performance appraisals which said this is what you've done well. This is where I think you didn't do well. This is what you need to work on. And if you were to work on these issues and show progress, this is where you could go.”

A calculus professor banned calculators entirely and didn't grade the final exam (80% of grade) on a curve; most students failed because they relied on calculators and couldn't do the work by hand, demonstrating that tool reliance without foundational mastery fails under constraint.

“on the front page, it's no calculators. And he did not grade that on a curve. And it was not pretty for most students.”

Experience teaches you what numbers mean by exposing you to patterns; when you see similar situations recur across your 30-year career, you recognize them and can predict implications, which AI cannot do without explicit instruction on what to look for.

“Experience teaches you judgment and and you talk about this in your book. It's all about the mental models. I I believe that strongly. The experience teaches you what the numbers mean... a lot of the things I see happening today link back to things I've seen when I started my career over the last 30 years.”

When you're nervous about performance and have high stakes, the key question to ask is: 'Do I want to succeed at this one time, or do I want to master my ability to succeed in these moments?'—this reframes anxiety from outcome-focused to growth-focused and enables better performance.

“Whenever you're in that moment when you're nervous and you really want something, obviously the best performance comes when you have freedom. But it's easy to get attached to that because you're like thinking, okay, this is really important. And so we get attached to it and have tension. So what you can do is ask yourself, What do I want more in this moment to be successful right here this one time or to get better at these moments?”

Getting up every single day to do important things rather than negotiating which days to do them is a more reliable input for maintaining health and staying productive than trying to optimize variable schedules.

“I have the same philosophy. You just get up every single day and do the things that are important. Um, so the inputs I have is I get up every morning, I work out, I look through, I read through my email and I try to think about what's the most important thing that I have to get right today.”

Review your early work (interviews, writing) with self-criticism to identify what you should have asked, how you should have phrased things, and what you'd do differently; this is one of the most reliable ways to improve because you see the results directly.

“I went for like a really long run and I started listening to them and I was like, 'Oh my god.' And it's like, 'I should have asked this followup. Why did I phrase it that way?' And um like you, I'm incredibly hard on myself. Came back, went through every transcript.”

Preparation must be done in advance; the quality of preparation cannot be accurately assessed until results arrive, so the strategy is to continuously prepare beyond what seems necessary, acknowledging that you don't know what the competition is doing.

“the price has to be paid in advance... There's no way to to honestly know how good your preparation is or isn't... is that enough?... not to the point of diminishing returns but to the a point of you know comprehensive preparation.”

First-principles thinking and root-cause analysis from engineering mindset are broadly applicable to business problems, but engineering overanalysis can lead to analysis paralysis, especially in human-centric domains like sales and marketing where relationship and speed matter more than pure logic.

“I love the systematic approach of engineering... sometimes you can overanalyze decisions in some domains. Let's just take modern communications which is driven in social media and and very fast-paced. um having a systematic first principles discussion about every you know tweet you do is probably not a great comm strategy... there are some aspects of say enterprise software sales that you know aren't rational but they're human you know like forming personal relationships you know and and the the importance of those to building trust with a a partner. it's not all just you know product and technology”

After wins or losses, analyze for 24 hours to extract lessons (what went well, what went poorly, what adjustments are needed, coaching errors), then move on completely and focus on the next opponent; lessons may not be immediately applicable but become relevant when facing similar opponent types.

“You play the game, you go back, you analyze it, you what do we do well? What do we do poorly? What do we need to do better?... and then you you factor all that into, you know, how does that affect us next week?... you you take your lessons and and you decide how you're going to incorporate any of those things into this week's preparation and practice.”

Great companies operate with deep founder accountability for every decision, rather than through committee-based decision-making or process-focused approaches, which tend to produce customer and employee dissatisfaction.

“broadly speaking I really like the spirit of founder mode which is just having deep founder accountability for every decision at your company. Um, I think that that's how great companies operate. Uh, and when you, you know, proverbally make decisions by committee or you're more focused on process than outcomes. Um, that produces all the experiences we hate as employees, as customers.”

The key to breakthrough performance is not the outcome but willingness to stay engaged in uncomfortable moments without backing away; failure 10 times while staying engaged will eventually lead to comfort and skill development.

“the key thing here is not the outcome, but it's my willingness to be in this moment and not back away. It doesn't matter if you fail horribly. You do that 10 times and fail horribly 10 times, eventually you're going to get comfortable in those moments and then your skills will be able to match and break through.”

Engineers and founders from technical backgrounds make good leaders, but great CEOs must evolve from being specialists in one discipline to becoming broadly competent across product, go-to-market, public policy, and organizational design; failure to make this identity shift limits company growth.

“I do think engineers make good leaders, but one thing I've seen is that I think that I really believe that great CEOs and great founders um start usually with one specialty but become uh more broadly specialists in all parts of their business... I think engineers who are unwilling to elevate their identity from what they were to what it needs to be in the moment often leads to sort of plateaus uh in company's growth.”

Following up after a date and clearly expressing interest ('I really enjoyed getting to know you. I'd love to see you again. When are you free?') is secure and healthy behavior, but people conditioned by avoidant partners may misinterpret this as 'coming on too strong' or boring, when it actually represents healthy directness.

“In that moment, somebody who's used to dating somebody who's avoidant might be like, 'Whoa, they're coming on too strong.' Or, 'That's so obvious. They're so obviously interested. That's boring.' But a ton of the work that I do is training people to identify secure partners and to reestablish them in their heads, not as boring, but as secure and to know that those are the people to go after.”