Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models

by Gabriel Weinberg

But as more and more people make the same decision, the common resource is collectively depleted, reducing the ability for everyone to benefit from it in the future

the tyranny of small decisions, where a series of small, individually rational decisions ultimately leads to a system-wide negative consequence, or tyranny. It’s death by a thousand cuts.

When dining alone, people often order the cheaper meal. However, when they know that the cost of dinner is shared by the whole group, people tend to opt for the expensive meal. If everyone does this then everyone ends up paying more!

Spend Your Time Wisely

.h3

Given its unique location, almost directly above the North Pole, Polaris appears nearly fixed in the night sky, despite the Earth’s rotation.

In the business world, there is a mental model that draws on Polaris for inspiration, called north star, which refers to the guiding vision of a company.

For an individual, it is important to have a personal north star, or mission statement.

Your north star will help guide you through various life choices, slowly but steadily navigating you closer to your goals.

But over a long period of time, many small steps can get you really far if you stay pointed in the right direction.

This is called compound interest, referring to the fact that your interest payments are growing over time, or compounding.

YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, BUT NOT EVERYTHING

.h2

Becoming One with Nature

.h1

Natural Selection

.h2

Beyond biological evolution, natural selection also drives societal evolution, the process by which society changes over time.

You must adapt to these changing environmental pressures to be successful.

you need to be open to new ideas and paradigms, adjusting your thinking and behavior as necessary.

Similarly, when organizations face disruption, they must find new ways to operate...

“It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.”

the scientific method. Formally, the scientific method is a rigorous cycle of making observations, formulating hypotheses, testing them, analyzing data, and developing new theories. But you can also apply it simply by embracing an experimental mindset.

You can’t expect to discover the setup that helps you do your best work right away.

When a scientific mindset is applied continuously via experimentation, you will improve your chances of being the fittest (some pun intended).

DON’T FIGHT NATURE

.h2

Isaac Newton’s first law of motion, often referred to as the law of inertia: “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

Inertia is a physical object’s resistance to changing its current state of motion.

you tend to have significant inertia in your beliefs because of confirmation bias and related models.

Inertia can increase the longer you hold on to your beliefs.

Have you reevaluated these views recently?

The more inertia you have, the more resistant you will be to changing these beliefs, and the less likely you will be to adapt your thinking when you need to.

Organizations face a similar danger because of inertia.

A long-term commitment to an organizational strategy creates a lot of inertia toward that strategy. This inertia can lead to suboptimal decisions, referred to as a strategy tax.

Reversing course once a strategy tax is established can be even more costly.

The lesson here is that you should, as much as possible, avoid locking yourself into rigid long-term strategies, as circumstances can rapidly change. What strategy taxes are you currently paying?

Shirky principle,

The Shirky principle states, Institutions will try to preserve the problem to whi...

Inertia in beliefs and behaviors allows entrenched ideas and organizations to persist for long periods of time. The Lindy effect is the name of this phenomenon.

The robustness of an item is proportional to its life!

the longer it endures, the longer you can expect it to further endure.

another mental model to describe the point at which something’s relevance begins to decline. This model is peak, as in peak sexism, peak Facebook.

Whether you are a market observer or a market participant, these structural changes are worth considering when you’re thinking about a possible new reality for the oil market.

Has it already reached its peak? How long has it been around?

In fact, something with a lot of inertia, even after its peak, can take an extremely long time to decline.

Momentum is a model that can help you understand how things change.

In physics, momentum is the product (multiplication) of mass and velocity, whereas inertia is just a function of mass.

However, a heavy object gets momentum quickly once it starts moving. The faster an object goes, the more momentum it has. However, its inertia remains the same (since its mass remains the same), and it is still similarly difficult to change its velocity.

In your life, you can take advantage of this concept by seeking out things that are rapidly gaining momentum.

Activities associated with organizations or ideas with high and increasing momentum are very often high-leverage, because your efforts get amplified by the momentum.

Similarly, creating inertia by entrenching beliefs and processes in others is also a high-leverage activity. Once they are established, those beliefs or processes will be difficult to unwind, persisting for a long time.

In an organizational context, establishing such beliefs and norms is the act of creating culture,

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. It is a warning that if you embark on a strategy that is in opposition to your organization’s culture, which has much more inertia than even its strategy, it is very unlikely to succeed.

Quite simply, to be successful you need your organization’s culture to align with its strategy.