Michael Mauboussin is a researcher at Morgan Stanley, was Chairman of the Santa Fe Institute, and writes about finance and investing. He's a master at turning complex ideas into strikingly simple writing. Here are 12 lessons I took from our conversation: 1. The great gift of writing is it reveals how much you don’t know. You’re forced to rethink your arguments and go back to first principles. 2. Have something to say. Having a great style counts for nothing unless you have something worth sharing with the world. 3. The main lesson from Michael: Writing is about understanding. You write to broaden your understanding, and in turn, help others do the same. You write to get your arms around an issue. 4. How written communication is harder than verbal: in a conversation, you get feedback from the other person’s face. You can switch tracks midway if they look confused. In writing, you need to predict what might be confusing and deal with it beforehand. 5. How to develop a style: Find language that resonates with you. Read newspapers, tweets, new bestsellers and old books. Pay attention to words that pop out, or phrases that echo in your memory long after you're done reading them. 6. It's time to write when there's a gap between how much you know and how much you want to know. Find your knowledge-curiosity gaps, and you’ll have more essay topics than you can handle. 7. Charlie Munger said to be a good thinker, you have to jump disciplinary boundaries. One way to do this is to read widely. If you don’t, your work will be swamped with cliches. 8. Examine the intellectual history of words. Error and mistake, for example, are not synonyms. Luck and fortune do not mean the same things. Your word usage will dramatically improve once you know their historical background. 9. If Michael is learning a lot without teaching much, he feels out of balance. If he’s teaching a lot without learning new things, he feels out of whack again. The takeaway of the previous point: learn a lot… then share it with others. Write about it. Teach it. Sync the input and the output. 10. A great quote from mathematician Carl Gauss: “Not notations, but notions.” Math is full of complex notations but what matters more are the notions, the ideas, behind them. Writing is no different. Figure out the important underlying idea you want to share, and make it straightforward and accessible. 11. Great teachers are great learners. They’re not just trying to pass on their body of knowledge…they’re constantly looking to expand it. 12. If innovative thinking relies on combining building blocks in novel ways, then reading is the primary source of the blocks.
I can't express my gratitude enough for this interview. I've long been an avid admirer of Michael's work, and his remarkable ability to simplify complex financial issues is truly commendable. I've often found myself Googling 'how to write like Michael Mauboussin,' only to be surprised by the lack of results. Today, however, I stumbled upon this interview. VOILA!
David, you did it again. Thank you for this interview. Michael changed my view of the world with his book Success Equation. He has ruined a great deal of business books for me because he exposed their flawed logic such as survivor bias.
Michael's approach to making complex ideas accessible is genuinely insightful. This translates to the power of simplifying your value. By breaking down your offerings into relatable concepts, you can significantly increase your lead conversion rates.
