Super Thinking

Super Thinking

Upgrade Your Reasoning and Make Better Decisions with Mental Models

Summary

'An invaluable resource for making sense of the world, making good decisions, and placing smart bets. A fast-paced and fun read jam-packed with useful information on every page.' Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets
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Turn yourself into a superthinker and make the right decisions every time.

You want to make better decisions. You want to be right more of the time professionally and personally. However, being more right consistently is a hard problem because the world is such a complex, evolving place. How do you navigate this complexity?

Mental models are decision-making tools that guide our perception of the world and our behaviour in it. They help us understand life, make decisions and solve problems. The best models help us make intelligent investments, develop ground-breaking technologies and even travel to outer space.

- Note your frame of reference before debating someone with different political views. If you understand how your perspective contrasts with someone else's you can prevent the conversation from getting hostile.

- Apply the sunk cost fallacy to the end of a doomed project. Just because you've put a lot of hours into it doesn't mean that you have to keep going.

- Before blaming someone, consider Hanlon's Razor, 'Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness'.

- Try to solve mysteries with Occam's Razor, 'Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected'. When you hear hoof beats, think of horses not zebras.

Building on our knowledge of well-known models such as the Bandwagon Effect or Paradigm Shift and introducing us to the lesser known like the Eisenhower Matrix or the Boiling Frog Symbol, this indispensable book distils the most effective mental models into a single, digestible volume. It will make even the most complex models accessible and engaging to enable you to make better, more informed decisions in every part of your life.
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'Internalizing these mental models will help you understand the world around you. Once you can spot them, you can change your own behavior to avoid common traps, adjust how you interact with people to get better results, and maybe even articulate new mental models of the world that have yet to be discovered.' Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO, Coinbase

'You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head.' Charlie Munger, vice chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

Reviews

  • You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head
    Charlie Munger, investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

About the authors

Gabriel Weinberg

Gabriel Weinberg is the founder and CEO of the multi-billion dollar internet privacy company, DuckDuckGo. He contributes to a number of publications including Medium and is the co-author of Traction.
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Lauren McCann

Lauren McCann is a statistician and researcher. She spent nearly a decade in the pharmaceutical industry, where she designed and analyzed clinical trials and published numerous articles in medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research and a B.S. in mathematics, both from MIT.
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