If these 8 words instantly make sense to you, you're not just smart—you’re rare

Ever stumble on a word that doesn’t just explain something—it shifts how you see your whole day? That’s what these eight did for me.

They helped me say no without guilt, think a step ahead, and stop treating every little hiccup like a five-alarm fire. When they “clicked,” life got quieter and smarter at the same time.

If they click for you too, you’re not just quick - you’re unusually tuned in. You notice trade-offs most people miss. You zoom out when others zoom in. And you give your future self a real shot.

So, let’s walk through them together. Not as a vocabulary lesson, but as tools you can actually use by tonight. Pick one, try it for a week, and watch your days start compounding in the best way.

1. Opportunity cost

Every yes has a hidden price tag.

If I spend an hour doom-scrolling, I’m not spending that hour cooking, reading, calling my mom, or taking a walk. That difference—the value of the next best thing I didn’t do—is opportunity cost.

Once this lands, you stop asking “Can I afford it?” and start asking “What will I give up instead?” It changes how you plan weekends, projects, even relationships. You realize “free” isn’t free if it costs your focus.

Here’s a practical move. Before committing, write the top two things you’d have to cut to make room. If the trade doesn’t feel worth it on paper, it won’t feel worth it in real life.

2. Second-order effects

What happens after what happens.

Second-order thinking asks, “And then what?” Quit sugar. Great.

Second-order effect: your energy stabilizes, you stop the 3 p.m. crash, and now you’re nicer to everyone after lunch. Take a new job. First-order effect: more money. Second-order effect: more commute time, less sleep, worse workouts.

I’ve mentioned this before but the best decisions I’ve made came from asking one more question than everyone else. “What will this look like in 90 days if it goes right? What does it look like if it goes wrong?”

If you build the habit of tracing consequences to the second and third step, you’ll avoid messes you never have to clean up.

3. Compounding

Small wins stack into big ones—if you don’t interrupt them.

Compounding isn’t just for money. It’s trust, skills, fitness, creativity, and even kindness. Five push-ups today makes ten next month. Ten minutes of reading becomes a bookshelf a year from now. The trick is to leave your flywheel alone.

As Charlie Munger said, “The big money is not in the buying and the selling but in the waiting.” 

Most of us are good at starting. Rare people are good at not stopping. Protect the boring consistency that makes the curve bend.

4. Cognitive load

Your brain has a battery and tabs drain it.

Cognitive load is the mental effort required to process what’s in front of you. Too much input, and your decision-making degrades. That’s why cluttered desks, 40 open browser tabs, and nonstop notifications make you feel strangely tired.

When I went vegan years ago, meal planning was exhausting at first—not because plants are hard, but because every choice was new. Then I built default meals. Fewer decisions, less load, more energy for work and photography later in the day.

The move is simple. Reduce “open loops.” Batch tasks. Use templates. Decide once. Every bit of freed mental RAM goes straight into better thinking.

5. Bayesian updating

Change your mind as the evidence changes.

Bayesian thinking is a fancy way to say, “Start with a hunch, then update your belief as new information arrives.” It’s humility in motion. The opposite is falling in love with your first idea and defending it long after reality disagrees.

Richard Feynman put the standard plainly: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Try this in micro. Before a decision, write your current guess and your confidence (say, 60%). After you learn more, change the number. You’ll make fewer stubborn mistakes and more flexible moves.

6. Ambiguity tolerance

Unclear doesn’t mean unsafe.

Life rarely hands you full context. New roles, new cities, new relationships—they all arrive with missing pieces. Ambiguity tolerance is the ability to function (and even thrive) without complete information.

When I first started writing, I had none of the “right” credentials. I had curiosity and a willingness to publish before I felt ready. The page taught me faster than any course ever could.

If uncertainty paralyzes you, shrink the bet size. Make the decision reversible. Set a review date. Most doors are two-way doors—you can step back if the hallway looks weird.

7. Optionality

Build more ways to win than to lose.

Optionality is having choices with capped downside and uncapped upside. It’s why side projects are powerful. Worst case, you learn. Best case, the project takes off and changes your trajectory.

In practice, optionality looks like learning skills that travel well, saving cash so you can say no to bad deals, and keeping a portfolio of small experiments. If you run ten tiny tests and one hits, you’re still ahead.

Design your weeks with slots for luck to find you—coffee with someone interesting, an hour for an odd idea, a pitch you’re a little afraid to send.

8. Focusing illusion

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” Daniel Kahneman’s line nails a huge bias we all share.

We overrate whatever is in the spotlight. The apartment problem, the awkward text, the one email that sounded off—under the mental microscope, they feel gigantic. Pull the lens back, and they shrink to scale.

A quick reset I use: zoom out by time. Ask, “Will I care next summer?” If not, treat it like weather. Let it pass. Save your best energy for the few things that will still matter in five years—health, integrity, deep relationships, meaningful work.

How to use these words today

Pick one word and run a 7-day experiment.

For opportunity cost, swap one hour of low-quality screen time for a book or a long walk and track how you feel.

For second-order effects, sketch the “and then what?” for a decision you’re about to make.

For compounding, choose the smallest daily action you can sustain. Don’t miss twice.

For cognitive load, close the tabs, clear the desk, create a single-task block in your calendar.

For Bayesian updating, write your pre-read guess before you start a podcast or article, then update it afterward.

For ambiguity tolerance, take a reversible step into something you’ve delayed, with a review date in a week.

For optionality, schedule one hour for a project with asymmetric upside.

For the focusing illusion, zoom out by time and decide accordingly.

Why getting these fast makes you rare

Most people know these as trivia. Rare people use them as tools.

They can read a situation in layers. They trade short-term noise for long-term curves. They don’t panic at uncertainty, and they don’t marry their first opinion. They build optionality so life has more ways to break in their favor. And they protect the mental bandwidth that makes all of it possible.

If these eight felt intuitive, trust that instinct—and build from it. The words are simple. The living is the art.

A few closing thoughts

• Intelligence isn’t just processing speed. It’s judgment. These words sharpen yours.

• You don’t need perfect execution. You need fewer unforced errors and more good repetitions.

• Keep it human. Text your friend back. Eat plants. Touch grass. Read pages. Lift something heavy. Take a photo of that weird cloud.

The words open the door. Your habits walk you through it.