The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts

In the real world you will either understand and adapt to find success or you will fail. Now you can see how we make suboptimal decisions and repeat mistakes. We are afraid to learn and admit when we don’t know enough. This is the mindset that leads to poor decisions. They are a source of stress and anxiety, and consume massive amounts of time.

action. If you don’t test your ideas against the real world—keep contact with the earth—how can you be sure you understand?

Now you can see how we make suboptimal decisions and repeat mistakes. We are afraid to learn and admit when we don’t know enough. This is the mindset that leads to poor decisions. They are a source of stress and anxiety, and consume massive amounts of time.

When we mistake the map for reality, we start to think we have all the answers.

Rather than update our views, we double down our effort, accelerating our frustrations and anxiety.

Trust and trustworthiness are the results of multiple interactions. This is why second-order thinking is so useful and valuable. Going for the immediate payoff in our interactions with people, unless they are a win-win, almost always guarantees that interaction will be a one-off. Maximizing benefits is something that happens over time.

Farnam Street is devoted to helping you develop an understanding of how the world really works, make better decisions, and live a better life. We address such topics as mental models, decision-making, learning, reading, and the art of living.

We can anticipate and respond to objections because we’ve heard them before

Our lack of perfect information about the world gives rise to all of probability theory, and its usefulness.