Do you want BuboFlash to help you learning these things? Or do you want to add or correct something? Click here to log in or create user.



If this seems self-evident, it's actually a very unnatural way to think. Without the right training, most minds take the wrong approach. They prefer to solve problems by asking: Which ideas do I already love and know deeply, and how can I apply them to the situation at hand? Psychologists call this the “Availability Heuristic” and its power is well-documented.

You know the old adage, to the man with only a hammer, everything starts looking a bit like a nail. Such narrow-minded thinking feels entirely natural to us, but it leads to far too many misjudgments. You probably do it every single day without knowing.

It's not you don't have some good ideas in your head. You probably do! No competent adult is a total klutz. It's just that we tend to be very limited in our good ideas, and we over-use them. This makes our good ideas just as dangerous as bad ones!

The great investor and teacher Benjamin Graham explained it best:

You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea, because you forget that the good idea has limits.

Smart people like Charlie Munger realize that the antidote to this sort of “mental overreaching” is to add more models to your mental palette; to expand your repertoire of ideas, making them vivid and available in the problem-solving process.

If you want to change selection, open document below and click on "Move attachment"

Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions
s that you must have a large number of them, and they must be fundamentally lasting ideas. As with physical tools, the lack of a mental tool at the crucial moment can lead to a bad result, and the use of a wrong mental tool is even worse. <span>If this seems self-evident, it's actually a very unnatural way to think. Without the right training, most minds take the wrong approach. They prefer to solve problems by asking: Which ideas do I already love and know deeply, and how can I apply them to the situation at hand? Psychologists call this the “Availability Heuristic” and its power is well-documented. You know the old adage, to the man with only a hammer, everything starts looking a bit like a nail. Such narrow-minded thinking feels entirely natural to us, but it leads to far too many misjudgments. You probably do it every single day without knowing. It's not you don't have some good ideas in your head. You probably do! No competent adult is a total klutz. It's just that we tend to be very limited in our good ideas, and we over-use them. This makes our good ideas just as dangerous as bad ones! The great investor and teacher Benjamin Graham explained it best: You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea, because you forget that the good idea has limits. Smart people like Charlie Munger realize that the antidote to this sort of “mental overreaching” is to add more models to your mental palette; to expand your repertoire of ideas, making them vivid and available in the problem-solving process. You'll know you're on to something when ideas start to compete with one another — you'll find situations where Model 1 tells you X and Model 2 tells you Y. Believe it or not, this the


Summary

statusnot read reprioritisations
last reprioritisation on suggested re-reading day
started reading on finished reading on

Details


Discussion

Do you want to join discussion? Click here to log in or create user.