The Bible of Mental Models: Improve Your Decision-Making, Develop Clear Thinking, and Learn the Mental Frameworks used by Billionaires

By Jared Parker

Do you want to supercharge your decision-making skills and stop sabotaging yourself? Want to uncover the mental frameworks used by the world's billionaires? Then this book is for you.

 

Delving into the fundamentals behind the subconscious mindsets and attitudes which shape us, this comprehensive guide provides a roadmap to understanding our deepest thoughts and attitudes, and re-shaping them to prime us for success.

 

Bias, fear of loss, negativity – so many things hold us back in life and sabotage us before we can even get started. But now, you can arm yourself with the tools you need to identify these negative behaviors, stop them in their tracks, and rebuild your brain from the ground up!

 

Here's what you'll discover inside:

• What Are Mental Models?
• Understanding Bias and How Our Brains Work Against Us
• Breaking Down your Mindsets – How to Stop Regret, Think Long-Term, and Beat the Herd Mentality
• How Physics can Help us Make Better Choices
• Upping Your Bottom Line to Get More Stuff Done
• The Tools for Success, including Persuasion, Social Proof, and Scarcity Mindset
• How to Get Unstuck – Overcoming Negative Self-Talk and Attitudes
• And So Much More

Whether you're looking to supercharge your entrepreneurial skills or protect yourself from the predatory tactics which make you work against your interests, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to take their life to the next level. Our mindsets are the launching pad for everything we do – it's time to ready them for success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jared Parker
• Release date: Apr 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393116332

Book preview

The Bible of Mental Models

Improve Your Decision-Making, Develop Clear Thinking, and Learn the Mental Frameworks used by Billionaires

––––––––

By Jared Parker

© Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.

The content contained within this book may not be reproduced, duplicated or transmitted without direct written permission from the author or the publisher.

Under no circumstances will any blame or legal responsibility be held against the publisher, or author, for any damages, reparation, or monetary loss due to the information contained within this book, either directly or indirectly.

Legal Notice:

This book is copyright protected. It is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote or paraphrase any part, or the content within this book, without the consent of the author or publisher.

Disclaimer Notice:

Please note the information contained within this document is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All effort has been executed to present accurate, up to date, reliable, complete information. No warranties of any kind are declared or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical or professional advice. The content within this book has been derived from various sources. Please consult a licensed professional before attempting any techniques outlined in this book.

By reading this document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances is the author responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, that are incurred as a result of the use of information contained within this document, including, but not limited to, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: What are Mental Models?

What Mental Models Are

Why You Need Unbiased Mental Models

Effective Use of Mental Models

Letting Go of Biases

Selective Perception

Confirmation Bias

Overcoming Biases

Chapter 2: Better Thinking, Better Decisions

Deciding to Decide

Don’t Be Static in Your Decisions

Takeaway

Strip It Down To Its Basics

Stripping Down Your Assumptions

Takeaway

Life’s Too Short... To Dwell on What Might Have Been

Realistically Applying the Regret Minimization to Tough Decisions

Takeaway

Seeing Beyond the Obvious

Immediate, Short-term, and Long-term Consequences

Takeaways

Engaging the Reverse Gear

Takeaway

Losses Weigh More Than Gains of Equal Measure

Combating the Stranglehold of Loss Aversion

Making Loss Aversion Work for You

Takeaway

Chapter 3: Upping the Bottom Line

Let’s Split Up the Tasks

Applying Division of Labor

Takeaway

I’m Really Good At This!

Carnegie and Watson: Two Good Examples

Things to Keep in Mind

Takeaway

Effective Utilization of Time and Effort

Takeaway

Going Back to the Drawing Board

Things to Keep in Mind

Takeaway

What Else Is In It For Me?

Dumb Incentives

Effective Incentives

Takeaway

Finding the Right Amount of Input

Knowing When to Stop

Takeaway

Chapter 4: It’s Easier to Hear When You Say It Like That

Because...

Applying Reason Respecting in Everyday Life

Takeaway

There’s A Reason for It Since Everyone Is Doing It

How to Not Fall for the Herd Mentality

Types of Social Proof

Using Social Proof to Your Advantage

Takeaway

Hurry Now! It’s the Limited Edition

Dangers of the Scarcity Mindset

How to Use Scarcity to Your Advantage

Takeaway

Returning the Favor

How To Use Reciprocity To Influence Others

Takeaway

Persuasion: A Glimpse into Buffett’s Mind

The Art of Pre-Suasion

Building Trust

Owning Mistakes

Give a People a Sense of Belonging

Takeaway

Chapter 5: A Coherent Whole

The Strength of a Chain is in Its Weakest Link

More Effort versus Effort Applied More Effectively

Causes of Bottlenecks

How to Identify and Eliminate Bottlenecks

Takeaway

Simplicity is The Best Form of Sophistication

Two Success Principles of Billionaires

Applying the KISS Principle to Other Aspects of Your Life

Takeaway

Just In Case...

Putting Redundancy to Work in Everyday Life

Takeaway

Avoiding Stupid and Costly Mistakes

Takeaway

A Tool For Making Unbiased Decisions

Takeaway

Chapter 6: Getting Unstuck

Flow with the Tide; Don’t Swim Against the Current

Netflix: An Example of Creative Destruction

There’s Still Time to Adapt

Takeaway

I’m in Too Deep; It’s Too Late to Go Back Now

You Can Still Make A U-Turn

Avoiding the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Takeaway

Use a Template

Applying Design Templates to Your Life

A Quick Word of Caution about Copy/Paste

Takeaway

Get Unstuck First, then Seek further Information

Billionaires and Simplicity

How This Affects You

The Simplest Explanation is not Always the Correct One

Takeaway

Let’s Look At It From Another Angle

Steve Jobs and the Reality Distortion Field

Different Perspectives

Reframing Your Situation

Takeaway

Chapter 7: What Did the Physicists Say?

Round And Round We Go

Increasing Your Velocity

Takeaway

All That Effort For What?

Takeaway

Let’s Play Seesaw

Bringing Balance Into Your Personal Life

Maximizing Leverage

Takeaway

Two Plus Two Equals Six?

Similar Or Complementary Qualities

Why You Should Consider Partnerships

Factors To Consider Before Alloying

Takeaway

Maintaining The Status Quo

Overcoming Inertia

Takeaway

Conclusion

References

Introduction

Almost every waking moment of our lives we are faced with making choices and decisions. The more wrong choices and decisions we make, the worse our lives get, and the fewer wrong choices and decisions we make, the better our lives become. But, most importantly, our choices and decisions are informed by our overall perceptions about life and the individual situations in which we find ourselves. In other words, how you see a situation or a problem determines how you define it and approach it.

Our life experiences and fields of study or disciplines have a lot of influence over how we approach different situations. We tend to apply principles from our dominant area of specialization to our situations. This is why an engineer would approach situations a bit differently than an economist, and a carpenter would see and approach a situation from a very different perspective than a programmer’s point of view. But what if there was a way to combine useful principles from different fields and disciplines? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to switch perspectives easily and then select the best from the available alternatives?

Indeed, no single discipline can guarantee all the answers needed to tackle different situations, but, thankfully, there is a way to approach problems from different vantage points to help us choose the best alternative for tackling them. And the good news is that this method does not require you to take courses in several different disciplines. It is simply studying a compilation of different useful mental models drawn from different fields and disciplines. This book presents you with a collection of mental models that are capable of turning your career, business, health, and relationships around. If you have been struggling in any aspect of your life, or you’ve been having difficulty making high-quality decisions, this book will give you practical mental tools to use in developing better-thinking processes and improve your decision-making ability. And how do I know this for sure? The mental tools presented in this book have been used by successful billionaires to turn their lives and businesses around–you can do the same too.

Success begins in the mind. Unfortunately, no matter how honest, nice, and good you are as a person, if your mental framework is based on false premises, success will always elude you. So, your surest bet for attaining success in whatever you do is to first build the correct mental framework from where your choices, decisions, and behaviors emanate. Trying to get better results without first correcting your mental attitudes is like trying to dry the kitchen floor when a broken faucet has not been fixed–a futile effort!

Success means different things for different people; it could be gaining wealth, attaining a certain level of social status, accomplishing your health and fitness goals, or making some groundbreaking discovery. The common factor underlying success is a feeling of fulfillment that comes from accomplishing a purpose or an aim. This feeling of accomplishment can become very elusive for many people who have not taken the time to fine-tune their decision-making process. Instead of a feeling of accomplishment, they are trapped in a vicious cycle of feeling disappointed because they are approaching their goals with mental tools that don’t work and they don’t know how to change it.

Have you ever witnessed an angry rooster fighting its reflection in the mirror? It thinks another rooster is challenging it, and since roosters are very territorial, it fights its own reflection without realizing it is just a reflection! Why doesn’t the rooster see the obvious? Its thinking process is a bit faulty (at least, from the human perspective). The rooster could inflict serious injuries on itself (from shattered glass) in a bid to overpower its own reflection. It is a pitiable (and hilarious) sight. Unfortunately, this is the same process we go through when attempting to solve problems with the wrong mental tools. We end up having psychological injuries and often give up on our lofty dreams and goals. Like the rooster, we can’t see the obvious because our thinking process is a bit faulty. To correct this faulty thinking that many people have, this book was carefully written in an easy-to-understand manner explaining different useful principles from different disciplines.

This book will help you change those faulty thinking processes which you have inadvertently acquired from your environment–parents, teachers, authority figures, and society. This first part of this book (Chapter 1) is designed to help you challenge your usual way of thinking. If you do not consciously examine your mental attitude (core values, beliefs, and dispositions to behave in certain ways), you are bound to repeat the same pattern of choices over and over again. This means if your choices are predominantly bad, you’ll continue in that pattern. And if your choices are good, you are most likely going to continue to make safe, good choices. While this may seem like a good thing, it limits progress beyond your current level of success. Advancements can only come from challenging previous truths to attain higher levels of truth.

The second part of this book (the rest of the chapters) is written in a simple style that explains the different mental models using practical everyday examples. Brief, real-life stories of successful people are also included to help you see how these people changed their lives by improving their mental frameworks. The purpose for including these stories is not to flaunt their riches, but to help you see the possibilities that exist when a lot of your decisions emanate from a place of clearer thinking.

Although the mental models in this book are derived from different disciplines, the focus is not on the disciplines themselves but the principles. The primary objective of this book is to help you improve your life, so expect very few theories and definitions and more practical explanations. I urge you to be open to applying these principles in your life. Start small; there’s no point in rushing. When you eventually begin to notice the usefulness of these mental models, you can then increase the scope of application to other areas of your life.

As much as it is true that the mastery of mental models is capable of bringing about significant changes in different aspects of your life, those changes cannot happen overnight. The key to improvement lies in the consistent application of these principles. It is also incorrect to assume that every single decision you make using these principles will result in complete success. There are varying and continuously changing indices that make different similar situations peculiar. This is why mental models are not to be seen as antidotes to mistakes but as strategies for improvement. This means identifying better ways of doing a thing, irrespective of whether the previous ways of doing the same thing were successful or not.

Keep an open mind and be ready to take charge of your world by taking charge of your mental processes.

Chapter 1: What are Mental Models?

Our response to situations is determined by what goes on inside our minds. This is why two people facing the same situation can arrive at different conclusions after giving the situation some serious thoughts. Each person sees the situation from the lens of their mental models and decides the best course of action based on which mental model they choose to apply, consciously or unconsciously. The decisions we arrive at are not based on whether we are good, nice and honest people; rather, our decisions hinge to a large extent on the mental framework from which we operate. These decisions cumulate into our life’s stories regardless of our temperaments or dispositions.

The question is not whether we use mental models; we all use them. The problem, however, is that many people either have too few mental models or have mental models that don’t serve them well. If you approach all situations with just one or two mental models at your disposal, you will be forcing reality to fit into your perspective and then wonder why you can’t seem to make the right decisions. When you are not equipped with enough mental tools, it is impossible to access the right mental framework for making good choices and the right decisions. For example, a person who has lived all his life in a quiet rural settlement can hardly make any sense of the hustling and bustling of urban life. Transferring such a person from his peaceful rural environment where he is equipped with the few mental tools he needs to survive and dumping him in a big urban city may not be a smooth mental transition for that person. There will be a need for a gradual-but-complete overhaul of his mental models. This is not to say that rural dwellers are less capable of high-quality thinking; the point is, living a successful and fulfilling life in an environment that is full of constantly changing and challenging situations (as is the reality in the modern world) requires more than just a handful of mental tools.

On the other hand, if your mental tools are outdated, faulty, or heavily biased, it is impossible to achieve the clear thinking required for high-quality decision-making and actions. This is the case with many people who hold on tightly to their cognitive biases even when repeated results prove that their assumptions are flawed. What you should continuously seek is access to the right mental tools in adequate quantities to help you navigate life’s many situations.

What Mental Models Are

So what are mental models? In simple terms, mental models are the mental representations of how you view the world. Think of a mental model as a lens through which you view the world. This means that your perception of yourself, your situations, goals, job, relationship, and pretty much everything is simply one out of the many possible interpretations of what these things are, and that interpretation depends on how your lens works. A faulty lens will definitely produce faulty interpretations and vice versa.

The good news is that regardless of the type of lens you have, there are some unbiased lenses or mental models that have been