Mental Models
Munger has a way of thinking through problems using what he calls a broad latticework of mental models. Mental models are chunks of knowledge from different disciplines that can be simplified and applied to better understand the world. The way he describes it, they help identify what information is relevant in any given situation, and the most reasonable parameters to work in. His track record shows that this doesn’t just make sense in theory but is devastatingly useful in practice. The last eight years of my life have been devoted to identifying and learning the mental models that have the greatest positive impact and trying to understand how we think, how we update, how we learn, and how we can make better decisions.
In life and business, the person with the fewest blind spots wins1. Removing blind spots means we see, interact with, and move closer to understanding reality. We think better. And thinking better is about finding simple processes that help us work through problems from multiple dimensions and perspectives, allowing us to better choose solutions that fit what matters to us. The skill for finding the right solutions for the right problems is one form of wisdom.
This website is about the pursuit of that wisdom, the pursuit of uncovering how things work, the pursuit of going to bed smarter than when we woke up.
Decisions based on improved understanding will be better than ones based on ignorance. While we can’t predict which problems will inevitably crop up in life, we can learn time-tested ideas that help us prepare for whatever the world throws at us.
Source: The Ultimate Guide to Making Smart Decisions