This past November, right after Trump won the election, the WSJ ran a story about a “Trump whale” — a mysterious trader, known only as Theo, who had made a series of very large bets on the Polymarket prediction market.
Theo had bet $30 million of his own money that 1) Trump would win the election, that 2) he would win the popular vote, and that 3) he would sweep the “blue wall” of swing states.
Against the predictions of all pollsters, and against even the betting odds on Polymarket, all three things came to pass, and Theo collected $50 million as a payday.
The WSJ managed to get in contact with Theo. He explained some of his reasoning for why he was confident enough to put down $30 million of his own money on bets against what both experts and the wisdom of the crowd were saying.
That’s how I learned the following:
The normal way to poll people is to ask them, “Who you gonna vote for?” That produces certain results, which as this past election and previous elections have shown, can be significantly off from reality.
But a less normal way to poll people is to ask them, “Who your neighbor gonna vote for?” For whatever psychological reason, this tends to produce poll results that are significantly different than the normal way to poll.
Theo looked at a couple of these “neighbor” polls done in September alongside normal polls. The neighbor polls were all suggesting that support for Trump was several percentage points higher than everybody was saying.
This became one of the data points that gave this guy the confidence to make his ballsy bets, and the info to bet right and win $50 mil.
I’m telling you this for two reasons.
Reason one is if you’re trying to get info out of your readers, it might make sense not to ask them, “What do you want,” but to ask, “What do you think other people would want?” I tried it while initially working out the right pricing for Daily Email Habit, and it gave me useful info.
Reason two is simply that this neighbor polling thing is just another example of how much our own self-centered thinking tends to color how we see the world and how we behave.
I’m telling you this specifically in case you are ever plagued by thoughts like, “Nobody would want to read what I write,” or, “Nobody would want to pay money for this offer I have.”
The sticking point there is the old, I Me Mine.
If you find yourself ever thinking thoughts like — convincing yourself that you can predict what other people think, when it comes to what you are doing or could be doing — then take a lesson from the Trump whale:
The next time you are sure that you know what other people think, take yourself out of the equation. Ask yourself, “Would there be people who would want to read or buy this… if my neighbor were offering it?”
Do this, and you might win bigly.
And btw, today’s email was based on my daily puzzle that went out via Daily Email Habit. If you enjoyed today’s email, maybe you’d enjoy writing emails following daily email habit? Or maybe your neighbor would? Here’s more info in either case: