Thread by @fuelSelfMastery

Do you want to think better?

-Thread-

The world is complex and interconnected, and we need to understand the big ideas from big disciplines, in order to have a whole map of reality to be able to make better decisions.

Critical thinking has to be based on going from the fundamental ideas to the mental models.

Mental models are the most important ideas of each science: philosophy, mathematics, physics, statistics, engineering, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, and history.

You need to know and connect them.

It is the way of thinking of the greatest in history.

"The first rule is that you can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form."

—Charlie Munger

"I basically load my head full of mental models."

—Naval Ravikant

"Don’t just follow the trend. You may have heard me say that it’s good to think in terms of the physics approach of first principles. Which is, rather than reasoning by analogy, you boil things down to the most fundamental truths you can imagine & you reason up from there."
—Elon

"The things best to know are first principles and causes, but these things are perhaps the most difficult for men to grasp, for they are farthest removed from the senses."

—Aristotle

"If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this universe, into parts—physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on—remember that nature does not know it!"

—Richard Feynman

"Specialization is for insects."

—Robert A. Heinlein

These mental models do not tell you what you think, rather they teach you how to think, and encourage you to think critically.

Here are few examples of how you can use Mental models in your life:

• Are you going through a difficult time in your life? The mental models of Stoicism, Anti-fragility, and Resilience give you the vision & strength you need.

• Do you wonder why your life is not like those of the influencers on Instagram? Plato's Cave metaphor will answer you.

• Do you doubt what principles you have to apply to your business for it to be successful? Leverage, Niches, and Scale models will guide you.

• Are you not sure what moves your manager or your clients? Take a look at the Incentives mental model.

• Are you worried that your emotions will affect your decisions? The 25 biases that Charlie Munger details in Psychology of Human Misjudgment will help you.

Mental models are for people who want to think in a multidisciplinary way.

Some of the powerful mental models are:

Leverage:

With a small amount of input force, we can make a great output force through leverage.

Confirmation Bias:

This is a human tendency to look for and interpret information in a way that reinforces or confirms what you already believe.

Inversion Mental Model:

The inversion perspective is one of the most powerful mental models. Rather than thinking about your desired outcome, consider the outcome you'd like to avoid.

Fundamental Attribution Error:

We're more likely to believe someone is acting a certain way because of their character than the situation.

Skin In the Game:

Avoid taking advice from someone who gives advice for a living, unless there is a penalty for their advice.

— Nassim Taleb

Compound interest:

"All returns in life come from a compound interest in long-term games"

-Naval Ravikant

Occam's Razor:

This principle states the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If you're trying to understand what happened, develop the most basic hypothesis possible.

Jealousy Tendency:

There are two types of envy. The productive type is "inferiority," or the desire to raise yourself up to another person's level. Do you want to become as successful as your team's marketing director? You're motivated by this kind of envy.

The unproductive type is malicious envy, or the desire to take something valuable away from someone else -- not for your own means, but so they don't have it.

Opportunity Costs:

Every choice comes at the cost of another. If you decide to send emails after lunch, you can't use that time to write a blog post. If you pursue one large, unpredictable lead-generation campaign, you won't have the bandwidth to pursue another at the same time.

Pareto Principle:

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, means most results aren't distributed equally. In other words:

-20% of the work generates 80% of the returns
-20% of your traffic yields 80% of your leads
-20% of your time produces 80% of your results

These are just 10 of the mental models to help you get started.

If you want to learn 100 mental models and internalize them in your head, get your copy: gumroad.com/a/890836083/Ax…

• Thank you for reading

• Please FOLLOW me (@fuelSelfMastery) to see more content like this in the future.

• Please retweet the first tweet of this thread so more people can see it:

https://twitter.com/fuelSelfMastery/status/1411304402657243139?s=20