Mental Models started with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Shane Parrish popularized it. George MacGill is sort of an expert on mental models
Great introduction for mental models
Mental Models are recipes for all decision making. They can be analogies that helps you explain things
Inversion - Instead of seeking excellence, avoid stupidity. example: instead of figuring out how to be happy, think of how to make a depressed person and avoid that.
What mistakes George is avoiding in his 20s:
1. avoid discomfort
2. being around or working with ppl he doesnt admire
3. compounding his career
4. neglecting health
5. debt
6. toxic relationships
7. feedbackless environments
power of contrast - cold water to warm water experiment
he finds it fascinating that we live in the best time yet people are miserable. Attributes it to frog in gradual hot water metaphor. Being able to see the contrast is important!
When you look at IG you are looking at "10/10" lives so if you have an "8/10" life you will feel that -2. If you go to a hospital you will look at 2/10 lives and will feel grateful for what you have. You'll feel that +6.
Doublethink - you want black AND white thinking. Gray is where you go to die
Identity can be a superpower (identify as a non-smoker) or something that clouds your thinking (politics)
Signal vs noice - most info is noice. Always ask yourself “does this info help me make a better decision?”
Lindy effect - how much something lasts is proportional to how long it's already been around. Says 99% of ppl consume only things that were made in the past 24 hrs
Goal vs system - majority of goals aren’t met. It’s better to adopt a system than a goal. A system is something you do regularly. You’re more happy every time you follow through with the system.
High agency is the most important personality trait.
Asymmetrical risks - texting while driving
Asymmetrical opportunity - DMs
[57:35 - 1:00:43] Life is basically a videogame yet there are people that are great at videogames and bad at life. What do videogames have that life doesn't? (I would say life has real pain. Life doesnt have clear goals) - life doesn't have parameters, levels, identity (you dont feel bad when you fail or do something wrong because you are playing a diff character.)
- if you can detatch yourself irl you will be able to level up faster
inputs and outputs - extreme people get extreme results, normal ppl get normal rslts
Practice being weird. Drill that into your head. Like Scott Adams
Green Lumber fallacy- refers to a kind of fallacy where one mistakes one important kind of knowledge for another. A person can make a killer facebook page but not know the CEO of fb, cause that's not the necessary kind of knowledge for what he does.
chauffeur knowledge - stuff that can be recited. read this:
https://fs.blog/2015/09/two-types-of-knowledge/