All Things Being Equal

But they rarely are.

All things being equal is the English version of the Latin phrase ceteris paribus, which economists and scientists use to talk about the effect of one change while theoretically keeping everything else the same.

It’s a useful academic approach, but quite useless in reality.

So lean into all things not being equal.

• Where do I/we have an advantage?
• What do those people value?
• What and who do we value?
• Who are we trying to help?
• Which constraints matter?
• Which variables matter?
• What can we measure?
• Assume we’re wrong.
• Compared to what?
• What do we know?

We live in the real world.

All things are never equal.