Overconfidence is a powerful source of illusions, primarily determined by the quality and coherence of the story that you can construct, not by its validity.

We're generally overconfident in our opinions and our impressions and judgments.

Most successful pundits are selected for being opinionated, because it's interesting, and the penalties for incorrect predictions are negligible. You can make predictions, and a year later people won't remember them.

It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness. Indeed, you will often find that knowing little makes it easier to fit everything you know into a coherent pattern.

So your emotional state really has a lot to do with what you're thinking about and what you're paying attention to.

The conclusion is straightforward : self-control requires attention and effort.

It's not a case of: 'Read this book and then you'll think differently. I've written this book, and I don't think differently.