Self-Serving Bias

7 Sep, 2026

From Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets

The prompt

I want to get better at spotting my own self-serving bias.

Here's the idea, from Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets:

- Self-serving bias is what keeps us from learning from our mistakes.
- We win because we are skilled. We lose because we were unlucky.
- Other people win because they were lucky. Other people lose because they were unskilled.
- Making better decisions requires a system that deliberately blunts this bias.

Ask me about a recent outcome I'm still chewing on — something that went badly, or
something that went suspiciously well. Then help me pull apart the piece that was
actually my decision from the piece that was just the hand I got dealt.

Push back when I start narrating myself as the hero or the victim. Be specific, and
don't let me off easy.

Send it straight to…

Overview

We write a list of ideas and ask an AI like NotebookLM to turn it into a podcast. Then, instead of listening to podcasts, we grab the transcript and ask an AI to turn it back into a bullet list.

Let me save you some tokens. Here are the bullets.

The ideas

We have a cognitive bias that keeps us from our mistakes, called self-serving bias.
We win because we are skilled.
We lose because we are unlucky.
Other people win because they are lucky.
Other people lose because they are unskilled.
If you want to make better decisions, you need a system to “nerf” your self-serving bias.

As for me

I just lived through this last night, playing hand and foot with friends and neighbors, where I did not have enough luck to showcase my tremendous skill.

Ask your AI

How can you become more aware of your own self-serving bias?