Mental Models In A Nutshell

Do you remember a time when you had to make a decision… but didn’t know what to do?
Imagine you're 7 years old and you're at the candy store with your father. You've got 10 cents, and there are two treats you'd like to buy.
The trouble is, together, they cost 15 cents. As your father advised you, spending your money wisely would entail getting the most favorite treats you can afford. And you'd be satisfied with the purchase!
Eventually, you decide to get only one of your favored brands. So ultimately, while you may not have gotten everything you desired, you still got some of what you wanted.
Believe it or not, you used a mental model to help you make that decision. Or rather, at 7, you would have had the help of one of your father's mental models.
As you grew, you would have added bits of your own experiences to this basic framework to help you make similar purchases in the future.
Based on this example, can you see how mental models work?
Mental models help you filter information, which allows you to see things more clearly and make better decisions.
Mental models are also a shortcut to finding the quickest and the best route to solve your problems, whether work-related or personal.
"Developing the habit of mastering the multiple models that underlie reality is the best thing you could do," according to Charlie Munger, who credits his success to the lifetime cultivation of a "latticework" of mental models on which to frame his decisions.
The problem with the average person's mental models is that most are not designed to handle complexity.
And while the conscious use of mental models is possible, they require higher-order thinking skills that few people engage in for various reasons. But that doesn't have to be you!
This book will give you the tools to simplify complexity and help you create the latticework that serves you best. Inside you'll find:

How mental models declutter your thinking and stimulate decision-making (warning: immediate impact on 4 cognitive processes!) - Pg. 51

The Master List of mental models (including the best two used by Munger) - Pg. 110

3 characteristics that help you to spot an excellent mental model - Pg. 73

Why we don't use mental models and what we tend to do instead - Pg. 13

Tricks for identifying differences between poor and sound thinking – avoiding the first while doing more of the second - Pg. 16

All about the popular mental model that says you should never assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence - Pg. 142

How to acquire the skills you need for building your great "latticework" of mental models - Pg. 113

How to make your mental toolkit resemble a Swiss-army knife in 5 steps - Pg. 155

Munger is not the only prominent figure to have tapped into the insights provided by mental models. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have also repeatedly cited the central role in their personal and professional lives. That's a rare company to be in.