Reading this book has been a life changing experience for me.

Granted, many of the concepts are not exactly groundbreaking, but no one has ever been able to put together such an easy to understanding, entertaining, and, most importantly, RELEVANT framework for understanding the role of randomness in life. For example, similar concepts have been explored in A Mathematician Plays the Market by John Allen Paulos. But compared to NNT, who manages to not just inform but to CONVINCE, Paulos' work is dry and abstract.

NNT's tenet is that we as human need to understand, through science, the limits of our mind in coping with randomness. Our brain is wired to understand and store things as narratives, with cause and consequence and meaning. We always unconsciously misjudge the meanings of probability and randomness, and the failure to anticipate for the worst is usually the gravest mistake a person can make. NNT's goal is to pound the evidence of human fallacy into the reader and to make sure that, while still complete idiots, the reader would be one of the few who are privileged with the knowledge of his idiocy.

I am completely converted by NNT, because he manages to bring together many rules and evidences that I have always known to address a wide range of suspicions that I have always had. However, now that my understanding of the world has been thoroughly changed, I need some guidance on how I should behave. NNT has given plenty of examples in this book - e.g. if you're going to trade, never expose yourself to any possibility of a massive loss; or, just make small but steady money by being a broker - but it is difficult to apply them to the wider world. When I excitedly tell my husband about the brilliant and inspiring ideas in this book, he drove me speechless by three very simple questions - "How can all those improve my well-being? How can it help me in launching next Fall's product line?"

I am positive that, in time, the answers can be found in this book or future works by NNT. "Fooled by Randomness" is definitely one of the several books that I am planning to read over and over again.

To further explore the inner working of our irrational mind, I have started reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. It is great fun so far - the only problem being that people would look at me funny as if I'm reading a pathetic self-help book!