Why is good judgment scarcer than effort?

Okay, that's an interesting question; let's talk about it.

Why is judgment more scarce than hard work?

Well, picture this: you’re at a crossroads with countless paths stretching out before you.

Hard work is about how fast and persistently you run once you’ve chosen a path. Think pushing yourself day and night, working tirelessly – that's hard work.
Judgment, on the other hand, is the ability to decide which path to take before you even start running.

Now, which do you think is more important, and which is rarer?

The answer is pretty clear. If you pick a path that leads straight off a cliff, the faster you run (i.e., the harder you work), the sooner you meet your end. But if you choose the path leading to treasure, even if you move slowly, you’ll eventually reach your goal.

Hard work sets your floor; judgment sets your ceiling. As long as someone is physically able and willing to endure hardship, they can always support themselves through hard work. That's the floor. But only those who make the right key choices can achieve exponential growth and massive success. That's the ceiling.

Let's break down why judgment is so rare from a few more angles:

1. Hard work is linear; judgment is non-linear

Doing work: If you invest 10 hours, you get roughly 10 hours' worth of output. Move one extra brick, earn money for one extra brick. The return is predictable and linear, like y = 2x.
Exercising judgment: You might spend a year learning and observing, only to make one key decision in a single day (like investing early in a company or choosing an emerging industry). The payoff from that decision could be 10x, 1000x, or even catastrophic negative returns. Its return is unpredictable and non-linear, more like y = x^10.

Most people in society are accustomed to the logic of linear returns. The high-risk, high-reward, non-linear world feels unfamiliar and frightening, so naturally, fewer people hone this skill.

2. "Hard work" is excessively praised, while cultivating "judgment" is neglected

What have we been taught from childhood?

"With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown." (Equivalent to "Constant grinding can turn an iron rod into a needle.") "Diligence can compensate for lack of talent." "Study hard! Work hard!"

Society constantly tells us hard work is a virtue. You see an employee working late every night and think, "They work so hard." But you rarely see someone celebrated equally for making a few crucial right decisions. Why? Because the decision-making process is intangible, happening inside the mind, unlike overtime work, which is visible and tangible.

Our education system teaches us how to execute, not how to choose.

3. Effort springs from physicality; judgment springs from wisdom and experience

Hard work: Is essentially the expenditure of physical or willpower energy. You can almost always "squeeze out" more effort if you want to. It’s a depletable resource (requiring rest to replenish).
Judgment: You can't "squeeze" it out. It stems from accumulated knowledge, diverse perspectives, past failures, and a calm, clear mind. It’s a skill that improves with use (and the perspective gained from using it).

The process of acquiring sound judgment is long and arduous. You need to read many seemingly "useless" books, experience crushing failures, and constantly engage in reflection and analysis (introspection and analysis/review). This is far harder than simply "keeping your head down and grinding." Many people choose physical busyness to avoid the discomfort of rigorous thought.

4. Hard work can be imitated; judgment cannot be copied

You can mimic a successful person’s 16-hour workday, but you cannot replicate the decision they made at a critical moment, rooted in their unique knowledge structure and life experience.

Seeing someone make money in the stock market and then working hard to study K-line charts? That's hard work.
Understanding, based on deep insights into macroeconomics, industry cycles, and human nature, that everyone else is wrong during a panic, judging it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and decisively buying? That's judgment.

The former can be replicated on a large scale, so it's not scarce. The latter is almost unique, hence incredibly scarce.

To sum it up

Hard work is like the car engine; judgment is the steering wheel.

Many obsess over making the engine more and more powerful, yet they keep spinning their wheels or driving in the wrong direction. Truly formidable people spend significant time calibrating the steering wheel. They might start slowly, but once moving, every instance of "effort" (pressing the gas pedal) is amplified a thousandfold or more.

As Naval Ravikant put it, "Work as a lion, not as a cow."

The cow toils all day, working very hard. The lion spends most of its time resting, observing, conserving energy, exerting its full effort only during the hunt. That hunt is a single, decisive effort based on precise judgment.

So, stop just charging ahead blindly. Occasionally pause, look up, and think about the direction. Because in this era, choice matters more than effort, and thought is scarcer than execution.