Super Thinking: Upgrade Your Reasoning and Make Better Decisions with Mental Models

by Gabriel Weinberg

When arguing from first principles, you are deliberately starting from scratch. You are explicitly avoiding the potential trap of conventional wisdom, which could turn out to be wrong. Even if you end up in agreement with conventional wisdom, by taking the first-principles approach, you will gain a much deeper understanding of the subject at hand.

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

When someone presents a new idea or decision to you, take a step back and consider other ways in which it could be framed. If a colleague tells you they are leaving for another job to seek a better opportunity, that may indeed be true, but it also may be true that they want to leave the organization after feeling overlooked. Multiple framings can be valid yet convey vastly different perspectives.

“The key is learning to describe the gap—or difference—between your story and the other person’s story. Whatever else you may think and feel, you can at least agree that you and the other person see things differently.”