The Great Mental Models
by Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien
The first volume of the Farnam Street series: the map is not the territory, circle of competence, first principles, thought experiments, second-order thinking, probabilistic thinking, inversion, Occam's razor, Hanlon's razor, each explained with history and examples. It is well produced and a good first encounter with the models approach.
Read it if…
you want a curated, well-explained starter set of thinking tools.
Skip it if…
you have read Munger and the Farnam Street blog; little is new.
Three things you will actually use
- Know the edge of your competence.
- Think second-order: and then what?
- Invert; avoid stupidity before seeking brilliance.
Do this first
Apply inversion to a current goal: list everything that would guarantee failure, and stop doing those.
Our verdict
Well-made starter set.
Compare with other Mindset books
Smart Choices
John S. Hammond, Ralph L. Keeney and Howard Raiffa · Mindset
Rigorous and usable.
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