The answer to every trap is found in stories.

Because self-help is a fairly new concept — every valuable answer has to be embedded into a story that delivers some golden nugget in the end.

So, we (Thoughts & Productivity) set out on a journey to :

• Find them

• Curate them

• Filter them

• Adapt them

And present them in a way that’s actionable for you today.

Wednesday Stories — a short 2 min story that aims to spark some interesting ideas in your brain. Every Wednesday, we send a new one to our paid subscribers only.

How do you know what to improve in life? 

Today, we want to share with you a “war story”, but the kind that will help you to think differently than most people.

This is a tale of forgotten failures…

Survivorship Bias

During the second world war, there was a high incentive to figure out smart ways to outperform the enemy.

Weapons were being developed and everything on the battlefront was supposed to be improved in order to give our guys a better shot at winning. 

The military asked Abraham Wald, a statistician at Columbia University to find gaps in their thinking. 

Back then, the battleground was the sky — whoever had are dominance would most likely turn the winds of war in their favor. 

The military engineers were carefully examining the planes coming back from the battlefront filled with bullet holes. They would highlight the areas of the highest impact and proceeded to reinforce them to better protect the airplanes. 

That is until Mr. Wald pointed something out — the engineers were never looking at the full picture! 

Wald realized there was a missing yet valuable source of evidence:...