After Game 5's win, I was feeling confident that the Toronto Blue Jays would win the World Series. History placed us at roughly a 75% probability of success. Polymarket had even flipped in favor of the Jays for the first time. We were up 3–2 in the series and heading home.

But of course that didn't happen on Saturday. Toronto lost.

We Torontonians will always remember the 2025 Blue Jays and how fun of a season it was, but history doesn't care about second place. What history will remember is that the Los Angeles Dodgers went back-to-back and strengthened their baseball dynasty. This is to be expected.

But here's the thing, if you watched the series, you'll know that it could have gone either way. We lost in Game 7 in extra innings, after looking like the better team throughout most of the series.

What if Isiah Kiner-Falefa had taken a slightly bigger lead at third? What if that ball had never gotten improbably wedged under the outfield padding? What if Andy Pages had collided with Kiké Hernandez and not made the catch? The list goes on.

My point is not to be a sore loser — congratulations to Los Angeles — my point is that a few millimeters are all it takes to separate sadness from celebration. (Inches also work, but I prefer to use the international standard for weights and measures.)

It's a good lesson for life and business. Small, consistent changes can be all that it takes, especially because over time they compound.

It reminds me of something that chef Daniel Hadida says in this video when talking about Restaurant Pearl Morissette (in the Niagara Benchlands). He says, "I'm willing to go significantly harder to achieve slightly better." And that's because slightly is all it takes.

The above charts — taken from a recent Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch called "The troubling decline in conscientiousness" — should be viewed as alarming. For some of our key personality traits, it is showing a decline in extroversion for all age groups, a decline in agreeableness (except for the 60+ crowd), a spike in neuroticism (again, except for the 60+ crowd), and a massive decline in conscientiousness, particularly for young people aged 16-39.

Why does this matter?

Well, according to Burn-Murdoch's article (tweet summary here), the two strongest predictors for overall life success are conscientiousness and neuroticism. These traits are more important than a person's socio-economic background and raw cognitive abilities. They predict career success, the likelihood of getting a divorce, health and life expectancy, financial stability, and more.

Conscientiousness is defined as "the quality of wishing to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly." But simply speaking, conscientious people tend to dependable, disciplined, and committed. They are careful and deliberate, rather than careless and impulsive.

Neuroticism, on the other hand, is generally defined around emotional reactivity. Psychologists define it in terms of the degree that someone is prone to things like anxiety, self-doubt, and sadness. Someone with high neuroticism might, for example, feel easily stressed, worry excessively, and/or dwell on past mistakes. This trait predicts outcomes that run in the opposite direction of conscientiousness: lower career satisfaction, higher divorce rates, reduced life expectancy, and so on. It can also heighten risk perception, which makes neurotic people more likely to overlook potential opportunities.

So once again, it is alarming that these two traits are shifting meaningfully in the wrong directions for young people. Burn-Murdoch puts at least part of the blame on our hyper-connected and high-distraction digital lives. He also hypothesizes that AI could exacerbate this problem. If you're a high conscientious person you might use LLMs to supercharge your abilities; whereas if you're a low conscientious person you might use them to further check out.

The good news is that these traits can be trained. We are all products of our habits and environments. And I'm finding it personally helpful to even just write about these findings. It is also reminding me of a good friend of mine from grad school who used to always espouse something that he liked to call "casual intensity." His thinking was that you need to be on top of things and get shit done. But don't stress about it. Be confident in your abilities.

I think that's a good way to try and approach things.

After Game 5's win, I was feeling confident that the Toronto Blue Jays would win the World Series. History placed us at roughly a 75% probability of success. Polymarket had even flipped in favor of the Jays for the first time. We were up 3–2 in the series and heading home.

But of course that didn't happen on Saturday. Toronto lost.

We Torontonians will always remember the 2025 Blue Jays and how fun of a season it was, but history doesn't care about second place. What history will remember is that the Los Angeles Dodgers went back-to-back and strengthened their baseball dynasty. This is to be expected.

But here's the thing, if you watched the series, you'll know that it could have gone either way. We lost in Game 7 in extra innings, after looking like the better team throughout most of the series.

What if Isiah Kiner-Falefa had taken a slightly bigger lead at third? What if that ball had never gotten improbably wedged under the outfield padding? What if Andy Pages had collided with Kiké Hernandez and not made the catch? The list goes on.

My point is not to be a sore loser — congratulations to Los Angeles — my point is that a few millimeters are all it takes to separate sadness from celebration. (Inches also work, but I prefer to use the international standard for weights and measures.)

It's a good lesson for life and business. Small, consistent changes can be all that it takes, especially because over time they compound.

It reminds me of something that chef Daniel Hadida says in this video when talking about Restaurant Pearl Morissette (in the Niagara Benchlands). He says, "I'm willing to go significantly harder to achieve slightly better." And that's because slightly is all it takes.

The above charts — taken from a recent Financial Times article by John Burn-Murdoch called "The troubling decline in conscientiousness" — should be viewed as alarming. For some of our key personality traits, it is showing a decline in extroversion for all age groups, a decline in agreeableness (except for the 60+ crowd), a spike in neuroticism (again, except for the 60+ crowd), and a massive decline in conscientiousness, particularly for young people aged 16-39.

Why does this matter?

Well, according to Burn-Murdoch's article (tweet summary here), the two strongest predictors for overall life success are conscientiousness and neuroticism. These traits are more important than a person's socio-economic background and raw cognitive abilities. They predict career success, the likelihood of getting a divorce, health and life expectancy, financial stability, and more.

Conscientiousness is defined as "the quality of wishing to do one's work or duty well and thoroughly." But simply speaking, conscientious people tend to dependable, disciplined, and committed. They are careful and deliberate, rather than careless and impulsive.

Neuroticism, on the other hand, is generally defined around emotional reactivity. Psychologists define it in terms of the degree that someone is prone to things like anxiety, self-doubt, and sadness. Someone with high neuroticism might, for example, feel easily stressed, worry excessively, and/or dwell on past mistakes. This trait predicts outcomes that run in the opposite direction of conscientiousness: lower career satisfaction, higher divorce rates, reduced life expectancy, and so on. It can also heighten risk perception, which makes neurotic people more likely to overlook potential opportunities.

So once again, it is alarming that these two traits are shifting meaningfully in the wrong directions for young people. Burn-Murdoch puts at least part of the blame on our hyper-connected and high-distraction digital lives. He also hypothesizes that AI could exacerbate this problem. If you're a high conscientious person you might use LLMs to supercharge your abilities; whereas if you're a low conscientious person you might use them to further check out.

The good news is that these traits can be trained. We are all products of our habits and environments. And I'm finding it personally helpful to even just write about these findings. It is also reminding me of a good friend of mine from grad school who used to always espouse something that he liked to call "casual intensity." His thinking was that you need to be on top of things and get shit done. But don't stress about it. Be confident in your abilities.

I think that's a good way to try and approach things.